Commercial certificate question

I had an unusual one re X-C experience required for commercial. A guy I
worked with was ex air force. He had been a tanker pilot (KC-whatever,
tanker version of 707). Never bothered to get a civilian airman
certificate. Years later, at work, we were chatting, and he said he would
like to start flying again. We decided to go straight from student
certificate to commercial (this was prior to the major re-write of FARs).
We reviewed his military logbook, and we were not able to verify experience
requirement for X-C; could not find flights with landings more than x miles
from departure point.

Local FAA inspector reviewed logs and decided that if this guy could fly a
tanker on a trip of a few thousand miles, meet his refueling customers, and
get back to his point of origin for the only landing of the flight, he met
the intent of the requirment.