Talk:United States Army officer rank insignia/Archive 1

Archive 1

Change of text position

This change:

  (diff) (hist) . . m U.S. Army officer rank insignia; 16:32 . . Nricardo (Talk)   
     (moved intro., so as not to be obscured by table.)

Not sure I understand the motive. The text should wrap around the two tables. It did not? I ask because there are many other pages with the same style. If there's a problem, I need to identify it. The text wasn't intended to be a header, but I was hoping someone would fill in more text later. - Wguynes 00:36, Mar 28, 2004 (UTC)

Abbreviations

I've always had an issue with adding abbreviations, even before putting content on wikipedia. I've never found an official source for any abbreviations for any branch. Adding them is dooming you to endless edit revisions as personal opinions creep in. I used to host my own military rank pages and got endless "corrections" all contradicting each other. - Wguynes 07:52, May 15, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Wguynes. Below are official sources (i.e., the Department of Defense). These use the military's standard, which may deviate from civilian style guides. Also note that different branches have different abbreviations and that capitalization counts.

* http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/insignias/officers.html

* http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/insignias/enlisted.html

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does the rank of General of the Armies, belong here as well? Xtra 02:53, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Merge

Why was this merged into the U.S. Army article when U.S._Army_enlisted_rank_insignia was not? I think this page was valuable as a quick reference and a nice printable list of officer ranks. Perhaps it can be linked somehow to the chart in the main army article or otherwise reverted? Thanks. - 64.247.236.234 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC) Wow I was just about to ask about that Bushido Brown 22:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Silver & gold

The "gold" rank is not actually gold for the grades of 2LT and MAJ. The color is actually bronze and the reason it is considered inferior to silver is the bronze rank required polishing to keep from tarnishing while the silver ranks did not. This is what is currently being taught in the Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning.

That conflicts with the explanation from the Institue of Heraldry [1]]. If the original insignia was embroidered on the epaulettes, then silver and gold are colors, not metals. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

In addition, the link provided doesn't support the claimed rationale of expense, and instead gives a much more coherent explanation of contrast between fringes and decorations visible at a distance and insignia visible up close. --BStern (talk) 03:32, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Missing Rank

The highest rank ever achieved in the army is General of the armies. 1 above general of the army. --68.44.106.218 01:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

General of the Armies (#1)

I think that this rank should be removed, it has not been held in years and is not currently active in the US Armed Forces, Plus it Messes up the Other Ranks on the Template Feeblezak 10:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It should be mentioned, but not included in the table. There is no current authorized insignia for the rank, but it is still recognized as the highest U.S. Army rank ever held. Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

General of the Armies Insignia

I think this rank should be added to the template, if you go to Rank Insignia of the Chineese Army Page the design for General of the Armies Insignia can be found there —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.188.212.157 (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

• The page in question is Ranks of the People's Liberation Army and the image should not appear there, as there is no insignia for the General of the Armies. — MrDolomite • Talk 21:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Tale of 'Field' and 'Staff' ranks

The following appears:

...after-the-fact explanation suggested by some NCOs is that the more-malleable gold suggests that the bearer is being "molded" for his or her responsibilities—as a field officer (while a second lieutenant) or staff officer (while a major)

This is interesting but surely major to colonel are 'field ranks' and 2nd lieu to captain are 'company' ranks. 'Staff' ranks usually refers to Generals and only lower senior officer roles when specifically appoointed to serve in a staff postion. Dainamo (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Major's Insignia is a BRONZE Leaf, not a Gold one

The person who previous wrote this section said that the rank of major was represented by a GOLD leaf while the next-higher rank, that of a Lieutenant Colonel, is, of course, a SILVER leaf.

This is wrong, of course; why would a higher ranking officer have his insignia represented by a more base metal than the rank of an officer right below him?

The answer, of course, is that the lower-ranking major didn't wear a GOLD leaf, he wore a BRONZE one.

I've obviously changed this; majors wear a BRONZE leaf, not a gold one and Lieutenant Colonels wear a SILVER leaf.

The same goes for the US Navy; a Lieutenant Commander wears a BRONZE leaf while a full Commander wears a silver leaf; these two ranks, of course, are the equivalent of a Major and a Lieutenant Colonel in the other service branches.

Satchmo Sings (talk) 22:40, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

They're intended to be gold in appearance, even though the modern insignia is made of brass. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 22:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

IOH shoulder straps for General of the Army & Armies

I recently found a source that the Institute of Heraldry released an insignia chart in 2008 that shows the five and six general straps for the current Army Service Uniform. We also in fact have graphics for both on Wikipedia. Any objection to updating the chart with these? -O.R.^Comms 13:46, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Improper Insignias

Make sure that the insignias remain correct, as many times they stray from the true insignias in place. if needed, please refer to the Defense.Gov page at: [2]WordlessSafe1 (talk) 02:29, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

General of the Armies inclusion

I’m not sure we should have general of the armies included. It’s not really considered a contemporary rank, with no rank charts of publications from the DoD capping out at General of the Army. I’m also unsure, because the six star insignia that’s commonly used on Wikipedia was never authorized. In line with past consensus, i think it should be mentioned in the body of this text as a purely historical/honorific rank, but not put in the table which should top off at general of the Army (which most rank charts of the DoD still include as on the books). Garuda28 (talk) 13:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Totally forgot to ping @Neovu79: Garuda28 (talk) 05:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Garuda28: Yeah I was torn about that too since it is a historical rank. I'm open to not including it. Neovu79 (talk) 05:21, 28 October 2020 (UTC)