What’s the proper way to correct someone when not saluting an officer?

Probably a “ Hey Pvt did you forget something? “. Would have sufficed. But the medical Corp is notorious for being distracted from normal military courtesy as we have a separate pecking order, where a Captain physician can be giving orders to a Lt. Col Nurse. So that makes for a feeling of rank being just a pay grade and not necessarily an indicator of authority. A young enlisted person in that environment could forget what it is like everywhere else in the military.

There was a captain I recall that I think did it best. An A1C forgot to salute. Captain simply said, "Forgetting something, Airman?" It took the A1C a couple of seconds, but he saluted. Captain simply smiled and saluted back saying, "As you were." Easily a learning experience without demeaning anyone.

Was this lack of maners in one of those no Salute zone's that seem to be at most if not all Military Hospital.
I was not aware of this untill one day at Walter Reed. I was give a talking to about making all these Medical types returning a Salute.
The resion was becaues the Officer's would be doing nothing but Saluting the whole time they where outside.
If that is the case PUT UP SOME SIGNS, But the great of the day is to all ways be given No excuses.

Wow. Shame on the Major for not addressing the lack of a salute.
I cannot believe we are having all this discussion about a salute that should have been given and instruction that was properly given to the offender. Next we will be talking about what is the proper way to correct someone who directly defies an order.

General Military Authority. Being “aggressive” maybe I’m cut from a different cloth, but from what I read that was not aggressive, direct yes not aggressive. I have learned that many new Soldiers have not had a “real talk” by most of their CoC and by all means I have no problem doing so. I don’t know if the PFC was medical or not, but being medical and in a medical unit myself I see it all the time. Being direct and aggressive have somehow been confused with one another within our society today. I say keep doing what you do and let’s get our Corp back.

Absolutely the action should have been corrected. It is not a suggestion and in a Garrison environment it is and should be done. I remember a couple of incidents from my younger days though, being an MP. I was working the gate, back when DoD decals were issued for to gain access to the post. It was a rush hour the gate, lunch time, high noon. The sun was glaring down (before the covers at gates like now). I saw the temporary post decal (2" square) but didn't see the color. The driver (in civies) slammed on the brakes, backed up (nearly caused a collision), and yelled he didn't get a salute. I told him to pull into the defile lane, looked at the decal, rendered salute to said decal, and issued him a citation for improper backing. I ,afterwards, saluted him (since seeing his ID card, 2LT OCS) and sent him on his way.
Another time at a Payday activity, a LTC was walking towards my SSG and me. We both gave the greeting of the day. My SSG saluted, I didn't. I had my K9 on a short leash position, my SSG had not gotten his out of the vehicle yet. The LTC, started towards and began raising his voice slightly, asking SPC aren't you going to salute? Had to order him to stop and stay back (my K9 had already started leaning forward getting ready). We then explained that it was for his safety to stay and why K9 Handler with a MWD doesn't salute per regulations/policy/SOP. He was like, OK that makes sense. Lol

I will tell you the wrong way. In the mid 70’s a Marine Officer stopped us at the Exchange because he didn’t like the way we saluted. He made us salute over and over again. We then spread out in the parking lot forcing officers to salute us one at a time.

CW4 John Beebe, BS, DML - great comments! When sitting out with some senior CWOs when deployed, one of them had an answer that was awesome. He stated that once CWO's became a "commissioned" rank, there was (and still is) some uncertainty about officers and warrant officers saluting. When approaching an officer, he would salute the ones who took care of their soldiers and didn't mess with them for the sake of sucking up. When he was approaching an officer who didn't get it and spent the whole deployment working on their promotion packet in their "office" instead of leading, he would act like he was going to salute and hold his arm down at the last second. Most of the time, the officer was already in the act of saluting and carried it out. The CWO would then say "that's OK, Sir - - you don't have to salute a Chief Warrant Officer." It lightened the load and we all laughed as we took a long pull on our "near beer" from the DFAC. Bunch of Army Aviators. Go figure : ).

Jerk a knot in their butt. The major was wrong.

There are several ways this could have been address.. Personally I didn't see anything wrong with the way you addressed it.