LINE OFFICER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Line officer

... the observatory should be a line officer of the navy, of high rank, who should attend to the business affairs of the institution, thus leaving the professors leisure ...

— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... aground for thirty-five minutes. He had sat in the control room that whole time, supervising a smoothly-running operation. He had had to supervise it. Nobody else could have planned and carried it out. But it was not heroic. He had the line officer's inherent scorn for administrative officers, who are necessary but not glamorous or admired. He was stuck with just that kind of duty now. But he fretted. The local officials were given time to get over their panic. They ought to be planning ...

— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins