One sees this a lot.

There are "sergeants" and "lieutenants" and "majors" and "colonels" with eagles on their collars. There are even four and five-star "generals" – equivalent in rank to MacArthur and Eisenhower and Patton running small-town sheriff's offices.

It's what you might call stolen valor – a term of  opprobrium applied to people who parade around in military uniforms (and wearing military insignia) they're not entitled to wear – either because they're not in the military or because they didn't earn the military insignia.

Like the four-star "general" of Bexar County, Texas.

He is not in the military and he most definitely did not receive his four stars from the military.

As an Elvis impersonator used to ask: Who do you think I think I am?

An interesting thing about this is that there's a historical precedent for it. One with unpleasant implications.

In National Socialist Germany – it is always important to spell it out rather than use the acronym that the National Socialists themselves never used – there were paramilitary bodies that awarded themselves military ranks – such as SA Haupsturmfuhrer, a kind of "captain" who wasn't commissioned by the German army.

There were also – and here we hit closer to home – generals der polizei – that is, police generals who were also often officers of the SS, such as SS Oberstgruppenfuhrer (colonel general) and general-der-polizei Kurt Daleuge. He was the man who replaced the "butcher of prague," SS General Reinhard Heydrich, after the latter's assassination by Czech partisans.