Word: ranker
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bigeard's troubles lay the publicity that his military triumphs had won for him. Had the tall, sinewy colonel been a graduate of St. Cyr (France's West Point), his superiors might have put up with him. But they begrudged such acclaim to a "jumped-up ranker" who perennially poked fun at "generals with middle-aged spread...
...American political system, and then he added his point that the U.S. cannot turn back to 1890. Best translation: Ike intends to stick by his Modern Republican guns, but he does not intend to turn them on the other wing of his party ("Our job," explained a top ranker in the National Committee, "is to bust a gut to elect every Republican who gets nominated...
...hard to take, as a haggis. He sows as much terror among his subalterns as he ever did among the enemy, and runs his mess on lines calculated to make dinner with the Macbeths and Banquo's ghost seem like afternoon tea. And because he had been a ranker who had risen from the gutters of Glasgow, he is a figure of awe and almost superstitious regard to the kilted men who swill their usquebaugh and sweat to master pibrochs (variations on bagpipe tunes). As he warms his "celebrated bottom" before the mess fire (nothing, it should be said...
...could relax. Says one: "He'll bring along an elderly fellow in civilian attire and introduce him to the officers as 'You remember Sergeant So-and-So. He and I fought together at So-and-So.' Sometimes if you happen to mention the name of a ranker he'll slap his thigh and declare: T knew him before his mother's milk was dry on his lips...