General Officer Commanding (GOC) is the usual title given in the armies of Commonwealth (and some other) nations to a general officer who holds a command appointment. Thus, a general might be the GOC II Corps or GOC 7th Armoured Division. A general officer heading a particularly large or important command may be called a General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C).
The equivalent term for air force officers is Air Officer Commanding (AOC).
Famous quotes containing the words general, officer and/or commanding:
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“When Prince William [later King William IV] was at Cork in 1787, an old officer ... dined with him, and happened to say he had been forty years in the service. The Prince with a sneer asked what he had learnt in those forty years. The old gentleman justly offended, said, “Sir, I have learnt, when I am no longer fit to fight, to make as good a retreat as I can” —and walked out of the room.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)