Quote Originally Posted by Mike n NC
Here is a quick and dirty on the Chair going to a Marine. Never before has the Marine Corps had an officer eligible to hold that position, reason...they never had a 5 star.
Never having a 5 star doesn't have anything to do with being nominated as Chairman. There has only been only one Five Star (Omar Bradly) to hold that position and the Five Star rank passed into history when he died. The breakdown since the JCS inception is Army-8, AF-4, and Navy-3. Current US law is the following:
"The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 identifies the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the senior ranking member of the Armed Forces. As such, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the President. The Vice Chairman is the second senior ranking member of the Armed Forces." There is no ":...but if the Chairman is a Marine he's not really senior" clause.
The Service Chiefs (Army Chief of Staff, Air Force Chief of Staff, Chief of Naval Operations and Commandant of the Marine Corps) are "dual hatted" and serve as the heads of their respective services and as members of the Joint Chiefs. The Chairman and Vice Chairman are not dual hatted or have duties within their respective branches of the service.
Today, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have no executive authority to command combatant forces. The issue of executive authority was clearly resolved by the Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986: "The Secretaries of the Military Departments shall assign all forces under their jurisdiction to unified and specified combatant commands to perform missions assigned to those commands..."; the chain of command "runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense; and from the Secretary of Defense to the commander of the combatant command." For example, USCENTCOM commands all Forces in the mideast.
Some folks think the CMC reports to CNO because the Marines are part of the Department of the Navy. CMC is an equal to CNO and reports to the Secretary of the Navy just as CNO does.

more info available at: http://www.jcs.mil/about_cjs.html