A promotion from Gunny to Lt seems extremely unlikely. --Redwall 00:02, 11 February 2006 (EST)
- Battlefield commission from Admiral Adama? Not that unlikely. Philwelch 00:04, 11 February 2006 (EST)
There are actually a few reasons why I noted a possible promotion. 1) I'm a United States Marine and in some cases high-ranking NCOs have the opportunity to take a commission. They'll usually be either a Lt. or a Captain, depending on how high their NCO rank is. 2) There is a severe shortage of commisioned officers in the remaining Fleet Marine Corps. Just looking at Galactica, all we've seen are NCOs (which forced pilots like Hammerhead to lead Marine strike teams to gather supplies). The only possible Commissioned officer that we know of is (maybe) Lt Wallace, mentioned in Valley of Darkness. 3) As a Gunnery Sergeant (the highest NCO rank we've seen in the Colonial FLeet Marines so far), Burrell would have been the first choice for promotion, since Hadrian and Fischer are just E-5 Sgts. --Ltcrashdown 00:52, 11 February 2006 (EST)
- Being that BSG isn't an exact emulation of a specific real-life institution, could the term "Gunny" be a nickname for Marines given by pilots, much in the same manner as the nickname of "Leatherneck" or "Grunts"? Just a consideration. -- Hawke 13:27, 12 February 2006 (EST)
- A distinct possibility. I prefer this over re-thinking our entire notion of their rank structure.--The Merovingian 18:05, 12 February 2006 (EST)
- Indeed. The "gunny" reference doesn't seem like a lot to go on anyway, especially if the credits explicitly state he's an Lt. --Peter Farago 18:24, 12 February 2006 (EST)
- The simplest reason I can think of is an uncaught flubbed line. It's happened before (e.g. f*ck instead of frack, a younger Husker Adama calling a Cylon raider a c*cksucker, etc).-- Fredmdbud 21:19, 6 February 2008 (CST)