Lieutenant Colonel

Lieutenant Colonel was a military rank, derived from and subordinate to Colonel, used by ground forces (armies) and some starfighter operations. It was one rank higher than a Major.

In Union Service
Use of the Lieutenant Colonel rank in Union Marines and Provincial Army circles was typically applied to aides and secondary officers of regiment-commanding Colonels. A Lieutenant Colonel was often the regiment's executive officer, and may perhaps lead a regiment if the regiment in question was a support unit or a newly-trained unit. The Marines frequently used Lieutenant Colonels for Marine attachments on large, independently-operating warships such as battlecruisers and battleships where a full regiment was not quite necessary. Majors were also used for this role, but typically on smaller warships &mdash; cruiser and below.

Of special note, the promotion to Lieutenant Colonel was often looked upon as the "kiss of boredom" in the Marine Aerospace Division, as this rank, and the responsibilities associated with it, often took the Madman out of the fighter cockpit and put them into an office or flight director chair. Lieutenant Colonels in the MAD would often be linked to a Marine Colonel as part of their support staff so as to coordinate MAD activity; this was often done from a command post or, at the very least, from the cockpit of a L-202 Hellhawk. For this reason, fellow Madmen used to nickname Lieutenant Colonels as "Liftenant Colonels" or "Lifter Looies".

By tradition, the rank was pronounced leftenant colonel.