About CORKER's crack re: HAGEL's "temperament." This is *anecdotal* - O.K.?!1
After STEPANOUPOULIS was shook up by CORKER's remark, CORKER added what might be called gossip "from staffers about how they were treated." George went on to contrast this with repeating about how HAGEL was "an enlisted man" and asked RADDITZ what her extensive contacts with military personnel garnered about how they must be proud to have "an enlisted man" raised up to be their (administrative) boss.
In my first year as a lowly enlisted dude, we absorbed the distinction between the "upper class" of officers (college; Naval Academy) and us enlisted. The officers varied in personality as all other humans, meaning some were friendlier than others, but there was a veneer of noblesse oblige or (sometimes beneficent) paternalism that was supposed to be a sign of their class.
The captain of my first ship was a crusty officer, certainly maintained his personal distance, fine. The arrangement was sort of accepted, "normal," that we had Sundays off, called "holiday routine," where we lounged around in our sleeping compartment or played cards or guitar in the common area, wrote letters, napped, get it?
So about seven months into my year aboard, the captain was due to complete his own tour and be transferred, and the scuttlebutt (news) was that his replacement was going to be "one of us," A FORMER ENLISTED MAN, a "black shoe" meaning somebody who had crossed over (various ways) from being "enlisted" to being an officer. The anticipation was positive and happy.
Well, when he arrived, he had us busting our u-no-what working on Sundays. Old(er) Salts told us that "one of our own" who had worked themselves up were tougher on us than the to-the-manner-born officers, something about pulling up by bootstraps and having to prove things to the powers that be or something something.
Please, no flaming based on lack of scientific data. I said this was ANECDOTAL.
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