I heard a snippet of a conversation this morning on the radio recording an exchange between Barbara Boxer, CA Senator and a Brigadier General providing testimony before a Senate Committee.
The General addressed her as Ma’am in his response to her and she interrupted him and dressed him down for referring to her that way. She said she wanted to be addressed as Senator and that she had worked hard to earn that title.
The General had been addressing the male senators as sir during the same testimony.
I thought that this was very petty on Boxer’s part and showed a smallness of character.
Additionally, my personal experience in the military was that if you addressed a superior officer by the appellation ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ you were showing respect. If you addressed them solely by their rank, as in, Colonel or General, that was a tacit show of lack of respect. You were forced to acknowledge and respect the rank but not the person wearing it.
Barbara Boxer deserves being addressed as Senator……/.