Report: Kushner A Shadow Secretary Of State, Tillerson Cut Out

[jmowreader]

19. "Political officer" was their real title

All Soviet units had three primary officers.

The first one was the Commander.

Next was the Political Officer - in Russian, "Zampolit." This is where Red October really screwed up: the Zampolit is a member of the Party (I will explain later), and he also worked as part of the unit. All Zampolits had been in the military before they went to work for the Party; the Party usually sent them to the same kind of unit they had served in. The US equivalent of the Zampolit is the Executive Officer.

The third was the Technical Officer - in Russian, "Zampotech." This is what they did with the new lieutenants they didn't have platoons for. This poor bastard really got the short end of the stick; his job was to make sure all the equipment in the company was combat ready, but he was dealing with Soviet equipment and the Soviet supply system so you can guess how this job went. If for some reason the Soviet officer academies weren't turning out excess lieutenants this year, they'd give the job to a sergeant who liked the Army well enough to reenlist. (Units with sergeant zampotechs worked better than ones with lieutenant zampotechs; the sergeants had been in the unit long enough to figure out where to hide all those inoperable BMPs they were parting out...)

Comparing the Soviet Army to the Trump Administration is a fool's errand; the Soviets at least had SOME clue what they were doing, as opposed to the Trump Administration who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if you put the instructions on the heel.