Had a look at the DRF calendar. Looks like Mary is close to being promoted to captain in the Home Guard.
She is attending a course next week in order to prepare her her skills for a promotion to captain.
Interesting! You normally have to be a career officer in order to be a captain (company commander) in the Home Guard. And a basic requirement is to have graduated from the officers academy. - Mary hasn't.
But of course as Crown Princess, Mary is special and as far as I know she has rarely if ever played an active role on a platoon or company level in the company she formally belongs to. She is de facto lieutenant a la suite in the Home Guard. I.e. without a command. So I guess an exception is made for her.
I wonder if she will climb further up the career ladder in the Home Guard? Still without having a formal command of course. (She would hardly be qualified for that in real life.)
The next step after captain would be major, but the requires a basic staff officers training.
I guess she can get a crash course in that as well - she could ask her brother-in-law to prepare her.
PH, in his capacity as Prince Consort (and in Danish context that meant he held the same rank as QMII, except in regards to Constitutional issues) was made a full general and admiral - and he didn't have a formal officers education behind him either, even though he was a trained soldier who had seen active duty in Algeria. So why not Mary?
The reason was of course the traditional close affiliation between the DRF and the military, almost dictating that PH had to if not have a military role, then at least wear uniforms. Beforehand that was no problem, because since PH was the first Prince Consort in Danish history, the queen consorts before him just maintained a civilian role.
But today things are more blurred. Women can and do, and are indeed encouraged to, join the armed forces. So it's only natural that female members of the DRF play some sort of role within the Total Defense as well.
With Mary of course being the highest ranking (in the future) she will have to play a role that in some way is equivalent to the role PH played.
The commander of the Home Guard holds the rank of major general, if Mary is made full general a la suite in the Home Guard upon becoming queen, she would formally outrank the commander, and protocol wise that will simplify things.
She would of course outrank everyone except her husband anyway simply by being the queen, but it does make things more simple if she also outranks everybody else when in uniform. - It does look un-militarily sloppy if generals salute a captain first. And we can't have that!
So to sum up: I predict Mary will be doing some serious career leaps in the years to come!
ADDED:
I had a closer look at the course Mary is going through.
It's a basic course enabling the student to take over as company commander. (The second in command of a Home Guard company is a lieutenant, who is a civilian guardsman. However, should the captain be incapacitated, the lieutenant must and should be able to take over in all functions at a moments notice. But it is an advantage if the lieutenant can run the company in peacetime as well, in case there are problems finding a career officer of the officer is away for an extended period - hence this course.) As such the course is very much about administration, planning and dealing with personnel on a more personal level.
The course consists of the three modules. The first is for twelve hours.
The second is for 53 hours - a week basically.
And the third is for 24 hours - a full weekend.
- Mary has been out of sight for considerable periods here in January and February, so I wonder...
Mary is currently a first lieutenant, our Marie, as member of the Civil Defense, holds a rank that is equivalent to first lieutenant.
