No surprises here really and has been going since the dawn of time. From a retired troop's perspective who did his fair share of guard duty at the front gate, many of the officers' wives thought they carried their husband's rank on their shoulders. I have seen the same in Canberra amongst public service wives in Canberra and would expect the State Department and other departments in DC to see similar. It also goes on on private industry. , as well as in large corporations.

The is the (in) famous quote by a base commander at an all ranks base ball who started his speech with 'Officers and their ladies, Senior Non-Commissioned Officers and ther wives and Airmen and their women'. It was safe to say that it was not a happy base.

A lot of this gradually ceased in my time in the Royal Australian Air Force as airmen became mored educated as did their wives. I woked on an operational a front line base where the base training officer was a Corporal who had been to an Ivy League School and ton another wheer the Base Information Technology officer was a Sergeant. Both were highly qualified for their positions with degrees that were higher than most of the officers. At the blunt end in the support bases, politics ruled, and this is where many resignations occured because of the need to save face.

Another case was when a Corporal was mis-diagnosed with a serious fracture of an arm and sent home with some Panadol. The ####e hit the fan the next day when his wife came into the base medical section, threatening to have the nurse concerned reprimanded by the state nursing board, as she was a senior matron in a top local hospital. Fun days in the class ridden military.