Talk:Flag officer

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[edit] Needs serious work

While an admiral is clearly a Flag Officer, so is a General. Limiting this article exclusively to naval forces does the term a serious disservice and should be rewritten accordingly. BQZip01 00:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a cite where land and air generals are termed "flag officers"? It's generally (pardon the pun) a navy term. I can't find any support for your usage on the net, it certainly isn't true in Canada, and is not supported by Merriam-Webster, American Heritage, or Random House. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 03:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Just on my first search I found http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/insignias/officers.html. In general (no pun intended), the US military refers to all generals and admirals as "flag grade" officers (all of them have flags associated with their rank and branch of service). The remaining grades of officers are company grade (O-1 through O-3; this translates to Lieutenants in the Army, Air Force, and Marines and Ensigns and Lieutenants in the Navy), and field grade (O-4 thought O-6; Majors, Lieutenant Colonels, & Colonels in the Air Force, Army, & Marines and Lieutenant Commanders, Commanders, and Captains in the Navy). I don't want to get into a reverting war, so let's settle this before we go back and forth. I'll continue to look, but I'm pretty sure I am correct. BQZip01 03:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Read the very first paragraph of your link. "Army, Air Force and Marine Corps officers are called company grade officers in the pay grades of O-1 to O-3, field grade officers in pay grades O-4 to O-6 and general officers in pay grades O-7 and higher. The equivalent officer groupings in the Navy are called junior grade, mid-grade and flag." --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 04:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Oops on that link. Here's another one: http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13996&sid=905b4ad9c9010dd80f7e95b608a4651e In addition, other entities within the Executive branch refer to their equivalents to generals and admirals as flag grade officers: http://dcp.psc.gov/PDF_docs/FINAL_TS_672_CCPM23_204_20I7_signed_01Feb05_FLAG_20OFFICER_(vk).pdf BQZip01 04:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The second link is a forum; that's no more reliable than a wiki. As for your second link, depending upon what exactly is "other entities within the American Branch", perhaps it could be included as a note under the United States section. Your actual DoD site is explicit in its reference to Naval personnel as "flag officers", as are American Heritage, Encarta, Merriam-Webster, Wordsmyth, Random House, Ultralingua, andEncycl. Britannica. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 05:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I still think I'm right, but I will acquiesce (sp?) for now until I have a better source BQZip01

You may want to take it up with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history folks, I'm sure they can assist. À la prochaine. --SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 07:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] flag officer grammar

Reference the sentence "In 1857, Congress created the title of "flag officer" as an actual rank of the United States Navy and during the American Civil War the Confederate States Navy" ...

The clause "and during the American Civil War" is a dependent clause within the sentence and modifies the action of "created" only with respect to the object "the Confederate States Navy". Grammatically, dashes, parentheses, or commas can be used for this action; however, since there was already a comma in the sentence (that couldn't be replaced with a semicolon), parentheses or dashes would be more appropriate.

That said, the sentence should probably be reworded anyway since the US Congress would not have created the rank within the Confederate Navy. :) Guess I'll get to it! LOL Don'tKnowItAtAll (talk) 15:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)