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:
“According to the historian, they escaped as by a miracle all roving bands of Indians, and reached their homes in safety, with their trophies, for which the General Court paid them fifty pounds. The family of Hannah Dustan all assembled alive once more, except the infant whose brains were dashed out against the apple tree, and there have been many who in later time have lived to say that they have eaten of the fruit of that apple tree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“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)