Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Assuming that lieutenant commanders could make out their fourteen years by counting service rendered before they received commissions, still it is the commissioned service of the claimant that must equal that of the lieutenant commanders, and we repeat the claimant shows no case of a lieutenant commander whose service or even whose commissioned service was not more than about three years and a half. ”

“ The length of commissioned service seems in reason as proper a consideration in determining the pay of one class as of the other. If then the claimant's total commissioned service must have equaled that of lieutenant commanders of the Navy drawing fourth period pay we are of opinion that his claim must fail. ”