Talk:General officers in the United States/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

This article was taken originally from the General (United States) page. This work is not my own as all copyrights belong to the orginal writer(s) and editor(s). Neovu79 (talk) 00:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Rundstedts Uniform

GFM Rundstedt was made the honorary Chef of IR 18 in 1938. From this time on, he wore the collar patches of that Regiment and not the General's Arabeske. Of course, his uniform still was that of a GFM (golden buttons and cords, red piping, marshal's baton on shoulder strap)! Look here: http://www.wilhelm-radkovsky.de/rundst.jpg Reibeisen 16:50 MEZ, 14 April 2009

I concur as the bundesarchiv itself shows Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt in field officers collar patches and GFM:s shoulder boards and holding the baton here: Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L08129 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gsmgm (talk • contribs) 15:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Assessment

This article has been assessed as a start class article for the military history project. Please be aware that the project does not use a C class, and as such because the article does not met B class criteria at the moment, it is automatically rated as a Start. I feel that the only issue holding the article back from a B class assessment is the citations. The military history project requires at least one in-line citation per paragraph or block of information (more if possible or if multiple assertions are being made). If these could be added in, I'd say it would make it to B class. When this has been done, please add it to the list at WP:MHA and it will be re-assessed. Cheers. If you want more in depth comments, please add the article to the list at WP:MHPR. — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:14, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

German Link

The language link "German" points to an article about "General of the Army", seems to me this link is wrong. --Lastwebpage (talk) 20:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

history of the convention of Lt Gen being higher rank than Maj Gen?

Can anyone shed light upon the rather odd naming convention involved in having Lt Gen be higher rank than Maj Gen? After all, in almost all armies' rank structures (and certainly in the US), a major is two ranks above a lieutenant. It would make more sense for a Maj Gen to be higher in rank than a Lt Gen, which clearly is not the case. Does anyone know the reason for this inversion? Bricology (talk) 21:47, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Major general originated from an old rank called sergeant major general. In the Middle Ages, the order of general officer ranks from highest to lowest was captain general, then lieutenant general, then sergeant major general. In modern day ranks, captain general had "captain" dropped was replaced by general and sergeant major general had "sergeant" dropped and was replaced by the modern-day major general. Hoped that help clear up some confusion for yeah. Neovu79 (talk) 00:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clear and concise explanation, Neovu79! Do you think it might be useful to make mention of this somewhere in the article to head-off any such confusion on the part of other visitors? Bricology (talk) 06:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Since Neovu didn't reply let me- I'd say no, because it's not specific to United States usage. It is already explained at the articles for General officer, Major general, Sergeant major general, Sergeant major & probably elsewhere. Cheers, Gecko G (talk) 23:38, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Gold Stars or Not?

The article says that there is no evidence Pershing wore gold stars, but then has them pictured as worn by him. Which is it? Let's agree with ourselves. CsikosLo (talk) 06:25, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I can see how the article can be confusing. It clearly states in the paragraph about Pershing that he wore silver stars, and that the theory that his stars were gold were only based on a painting of him. However there was no actual historical evidence that he wore gold stars, and he is considered to have worn silver (Artistic license is not fact). To add to the confusion, the table below shows 4 gold stars for Pershing and the accompanying description states he wore gold as if it were a fact. For consistency, I have changed the color of Pershing's stars in the table to silver and re-written the description to match the preceding section of article. Hope this helps. - ^theWOLFchild 08:34, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The American Field Marshal

Should we add that Douglas McArthur, as commander of the Philippine Army, was a field marshal. Since the Philippines was part of the USA, he was our only field marshal. I don't know what he wore as a rank insignia and couldn't find it with a hasty search. CsikosLo (talk) 06:30, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The short answer? No. Longer answer; We don't list McArthur as a Field Marshal here as the US has never had a Field Marshal. This is a list General officers of the USA, and in that capacity he was a 5 star 'General of the Army' and he is listed here as such (though he was considered for a sixth star, as 'General of the Armies', but it didn't happen). The Philippines were not really "a part of the USA". The US ruled the island nation for a time with an insular government, but there was no integration. The Philippines weren't on their way to state-hood, they were on their way to Independence. McArthur's rank with their army has nothing to do with the US Army. If there is a page with General Officers in the Philippines, that is where Field Marshal McArthur would and should be listed. - ^theWOLFchild 07:58, 14 December 2017 (UTC)