Sergeant major general general appeared to create a precedence issue, in that a major outranks a lieutenant but a lieutenant general outranks a major general. This continues to cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the history of the rank, particularly in those armies using insignia similar to the British Army. The rank is sometimes used by paramilitary organizations such as militias. Sergeant major general Sergeant major general is a now mostly extinct military rank. A prominent example was Philip Skippon in the English New Model Army as organized by Oliver Cromwell. Over the course of the 17th century, the increasing professionalisation of armies
General of the Armies would continue for the next twenty years and lapse only with his death in 1964. The rank of General of the Armies was revisited with a posthumous promotion of George Washington in 1976. In 1981, upon the death of Omar Bradley, brief consideration was given for another posthumous promotion; however, no action was taken beyond designing a potential "modern day" insignia for General of the Armies. The most recent reference to the rank of General of the Armies occurred in 2008 when the Army authorized the Army Service Uniform as the new standard uniform for United States soldiers. As part