When Dmitri Petrov attends the reception, he is wearing shoulder boards of a Junior lieutenant instead those of a captain his colleague has although he pointedly mentions he has the rank of captain shortly before.
Sterling begins the preamble to his new defense initiative by saying that at the beginning of World War II his grandfather was sent to the Philipines with a rifle designed in 1904. The US standard issue rifle at the beginning of WW II was the Model 1903 Springfield.