The Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps (ACMC) is the second highest-ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps, and serves as a deputy for the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). Before 1946, the title was known as Assistant to the Commandant.
The Assistant Commandant is appointed by the President of the United States and must be confirmed via majority vote by the Senate. In the event that the Commandant is absent or is unable to perform his duties, the Assistant Commandant assumes the duties and responsibilities of the Commandant. For this reason, the Assistant Commandant is appointed to a rank equal to the sitting Commandant; since 1971, each Assistant Commandant has been, by statute, a four-star general, making it the most common rank held among Marines serving this position. Additionally, he may perform other duties that the CMC assigns to him. Historically, the Assistant Comandant has served for two to three years.
The 33rd and current Assistant Commandant is John M. Paxton, Jr., who took office on 15 December 2012, when Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. vacated the office to become the sitting Commandant. The first Marine to hold the billet as "Assistant to the Commandant" was Eli K. Cole (Allen H. Turnage being the last), while Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. was the first to hold it as the "Assistant Commandant".
Famous quotes containing the words commandant, united, states, marine and/or corps:
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
—Donn Pearce, U.S. writer, and Stuart Rosenberg. Camp commandant (Strother Martin)
“A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“There was nothing to equal it in the whole history of the Corps Diplomatique.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)