Talk:General of the Armies

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[edit] Pictures

This article currently contains a picture of the promotion order for Douglas MacArthur to assume the rank of General of the Armies. I propose that we move that picture to Wikisource, and in this article we just put a link to it. Like we did for Order 31-3. The picture isn't very compelling as an addition to this article. On the other hand, we could add a picture of Douglas MacArthur. - Shaheenjim 21:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I think there is nothing wrong with having that picture in the article and I don't get what you mean about "isn't very compelling". What would comple you to say that? AH! -OberRanks 23:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I meant "compelling" as an adjective, rather than a verb. My point was that the picture doesn't add much to the page. Most people who read the page probably wouldn't be interested in the picture. It's fine as a link (like Order 31-3), but doesn't need to be on the main article. - Shaheenjim 01:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think it adds plenty and who are we to speculate on what other people might think. I have friends who have read this page and all of them think that the AacArthur promotion order is a neat little touch rather than just sticking a picture of him in the article. IN fact, most of them were amazed that I was able to get a copy of it. Anyway, as I dont see too many people coming out to advocate its removal, I think its safe for it to stay put for now. -OberRanks 02:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying we should delete the promotion order altogether. I'm just saying that this article should have a link to it, rather than a picture of it, since most people probably wouldn't be interested in its exact text. There haven't been too many people advocating for its removal yet, but there haven't been too many people advocating to keep it either. So that's hardly the standard. - Shaheenjim 04:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I personally really like having a picture of Senate Joint Resolution there. The article is about the General of the Armies rank and not so much about the people. It also works out that the two people who did get promoted (Pershing/Washington) have pictures of the person involved while the person who was under serious consideration, but not promoted, has just the picture of the resolution to promote him. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 02:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Civil War Rank/Merging

I moved down the discussion from above since another merge reuqest is being discussed. As we can say, it was already discussed before. With those views included in the current debate, it appears to be 6 to 1 against. -OberRanks 23:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Merge Request

A user has requested that this be merged with General of the Army. This is a separate (although seldom used) rank from General of the Army (also seldom used). Considering the notability of the two recipients, John Pershing and George Washington, I feel this should stay as a separate article.--Rogerd 01:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree - what is really neaded is a cleanup of General of the Army of the United States, making a distinction between 'General of the Armies, General of the Army of the United States, and General of the Army (if there is a distinction. I think the difference is that General of the Army was the name given to the 5-stars of WWII, whereas General of the Army of the United States was the name given to those during and following the Civil War, and both are now considered to be equivalent ranks (5-stars). Yet the General of the Army of. the United States makes referance to both the WWII Generals and to Washington and Pershing, as well as to the Civil War Generals
The rank General of the Armies is entirely separate from General of the Army. The first is a special rank held by Pershing and Washington (and almost by MacArthur). It is considered senior to the rank of General of the Army verified from several sources. The merge notice on this article should be removed, although the articlew General of the Army of the United States should indeed be merged with General of the Army (USA) -Husnock 17:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Second Merge Request

This website: http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/armyorank/blgoa.htm seems to imply that the Civil War era rank "General of the Army" has more in common with the rank of "General of the Armies" than it does with the World War Two era rank of "General of the Army." So first of all, the articles might need to be changed to reflect that. But also, would it make sense to merge the articles on General of the Armies and General of the Army (United States) and address all three ranks on one page? I'll volunteer to do it. - Shaheenjim 19:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, is there a distinction between the ranks "General of the Army" and "General of the Army of the United States"? Does one refer to the Civil War era rank and one refer to the World War Two era rank? And if they are different, does that difference reflect the fact that one of them is similar to "General of the Armies of the United States" and one isn't? Or are they interchangable, and both titles can refer to the ranks of either era? - Shaheenjim 21:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, we should keep Civil War stuff off of this page. There never was and never has been a Civil War rank of General of the Armies. To answer your other questions:
1) General of the Armies was first created in the 20th century to honor Pershing and then Washington. It actually has nothing to do with the Civil War era title of General of the Army which was a positional title granted ot the senior U.S. Army officer.
2) You would have to start a merge proposal on the talk page per Wikipedia policy and I would vote against it as would many others. General of the Armies and General of the Army are considered two completely separate ranks by the United States Army, with evidence of this being Douglas MacArthur, who was already a General of the Army, was proposed "for promotion" to General of the Armies.
3) There actually isn't a difference between "General of the Army" and "General of the Army of the United States", although the second one is used mainly in textbooks and not in official military publications. Much like Chester Nimitz is often called "Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy" on PBS specials even though he never called himself by that title.
4) Civil War rank of General of the Army and modern day General of the Army are apples and oranges. The General of the Army (United States) article explains that.
-OberRanks 21:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
In response to your point 1: The website
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/armyorank/blgoa.htm
says that the "General of the Armies" rank is a direct reauthorization of the Civil War era "General of the Army" rank. Its quote is:
the office... in 1866 as "General of the Army of the United States,"... was again revived in 1919 by the title of "General of the Armies of the United States." That it is one and the same office, that of general, is unquestioned.
- Shaheenjim 23:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
That might be what the website says, but MacArthur's service record indicates its a higher rank than General of the Army and the present military establishment in the United States military views it as such. Although that is interesting that Pershing's initial appointment was seen as an equivalent rank...very interesting actually...yet the rank in its final form is without a doubt deemed the superior of two. -OberRanks 00:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The General of the Armies rank may be a higher rank than the World War Two era General of the Army rank. But has it also been explicitly acknowledged as a higher rank than the Civil War era General of the Army rank? Or here's a similar, better question: Is the Civil War era General of the Army rank considered higher than the World War Two era General of the Army rank? - Shaheenjim 01:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if General of the Armies is "higher" but it's certainly "different" and would not merge the two ranks. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 10:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The current Wikipedia article is about a rank that's titled "General of the Armies." This is separate from the rank of "General of the Army" and the two terms were never used interchangeably. The ranks should not be merged.
As for ranks during the civil war. This is still being researched. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Shaheenjim, frankly, I don't consider the about.com article[1] to be an authoritative source. This article is a very useful data point to help chase down and document sources that can then be cited in Wikipedia but I would be very uncomfortable with using the article itself as a citation/source as there's too much speculation, original research, and a failure to cite sources on several key points. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 08:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
First, note that I split this section and the next section into five sections, since they had become about five different topics. A little presumptuous, but useful, I think.
Second, if one of the ranks isn't higher than the other, and if they are reauthorizations of each other, then what is the nature of the alleged difference?
Third, if you want to verify the information from the about.com article, that's fine. But I don't think we should ignore it until it's been verified. It looks to me like it's more reliable than anything else we have on that topic. - Shaheenjim 19:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Splitting thread up is fine with me. I don't want to cite anything from about.com or make changes to the Wikipedia article base only on about.com. without verification. The wikipedia should be verifiable back to source documents and not back to speculation/opinion. The about.com article does provide what looks like pointers for productive avenues of research in terms of establishing what a "General of the Armies of the Unites States" is or is not. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Unindent - Getting back to the merge suggestion. Footnote 2 at the bottom of [2] discusses "General of the Army" and reinforces, in my mind, that it's a different grade or rank than "General of the Armies of the Unites States." This footnote also points out

Lack of uniformity in upper-level military rank and title throughout Army history negates attempts to draw comprehensive comparisons and establish true seniority. In early years high rank was bestowed temporarily upon individuals rather than permanently through the grade structure. Variations in title and organization make it difficult to equate individuals and positions of one generation with those of another, and there has often been confusion between title and rank.

I believe the best we can do in Wikipedia is to document that the ranks existed (or exist) and the circumstances surrounding the people that held them. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 00:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

This website seems to corroborate the about.com article's claim that General of the Armies of the United States is a revival of the Civil War era rank General of the Army of the United States. - Shaheenjim 04:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
It's excellent that you found it but I see nothing that corroborates the about.com article's claim that General of the Armies of the United States is a revival of the Civil War era rank General of the Army of the United States. We know that General of the Armies was discussed in 1799 and so the revival of the office part can be about that. From the footnote on the page you found it seems like the pay scale in 1870 just used "general" and did not outline separate payment amounts for different types of general officers. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I interpreted the footnote's reference to "General" to specifically mean "General of the Army" and not include other General Officer ranks like Major General. I suspect that before 1919, they used the terms "General," "General of the Army," and "General of the Armies" interchangeably. They'd never had more than one of them at once, and they all stood essentially for the same thing (the highest rank). - Shaheenjim 16:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Also, I don't think the footnote you cited necessarily means that "General of the Army" is a different rank than "General of the Armies of the Unites States." Really you can say the same thing about Lieutenant General in Washington's time and Lieutenant General today. Clearly they don't mean the same thing. In Washington's time there was only one Lieutenant General, and there were no ranks above him, while today there are lots of Lieutenant Generals, and there are two or three ranks above them. And it might be worth noting that on the page for Lieutenant General. But that doesn't mean they need to have separate pages. - Shaheenjim 05:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I believe though that's an excellent case for separate pages each of the three ranks (Lieutenant General, General of the Army, and General of the Armies) as each page can document the history of each rank. A page such as List of United States military leaders by rank could get updated to note that the title given to the highest recognized rank has changed from time to time. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
If their histories are intertwined, then we could explain it all on one page. But the point is: do you think we should have separate articles for Lieutenant General in Washington's time and Lieutenant General today, or do you think those should both be on the same page? Because if they're on the same page, then it seems like General of the Army and General of the Armies should be on the same page too. - Shaheenjim 16:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

More evidence, and more official: This official army website says:

a bill was finally introduced to revive the rank intended for but never bestowed upon George Washington. The title of the grade was modified from the 1799 version-General of the Armies of the United States-to General of the Army of the United States. Ulysses Grant assumed four-star rank on 25 July 1866

This website says:

rank of "General of the Armies of the United States" was actually created in 1799...
Congress revived the post and rank in 1866, changing the title slightly to "General of the Army of the United States," and appointing Grant to the post.

It lists its source as the official army website https://www.perscom.army.mil/tagd/tioh/rank/goa.htm, but that address didn't work for me. Maybe it's outdated, or maybe you need to log in to access it. Or both. And when I tried to go there, my anti-virus program said the site had security problems.

This official air force website says:

There were no more full Generals after Sheridan died in 1884 until 1917 when Tasker H. Bliss, the Army Chief of Staff, and John J. Pershing, the commander of the U.S. forces in France during World War I, both went from Major General to General

That even takes it a step further and implies that in 1917, General Bliss would've been considered an equal rank to General of the Army Grant. Which makes sense, I suppose. So now I propose that we should merge the article for General of the Armies, the article for General of the Army (United States), *AND* the article for General (United States). - Shaheenjim 18:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I checked out the article on General (United States) and it had a lot of the same information as this article, so I merged them. Same with General (United States) and General of the Army (United States). And Lieutenant General (United States), for that matter. I haven't yet added the controversial new information about how the General of the Armies rank and the Civil War era General of the Army rank are similar. So far I just merged the old information. I'll let people get used to the merge first, then consider adding the new information later. - Shaheenjim 01:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion of possible article split

Hmm, maybe we have too much information in this article. Since a reader may come here for a variety of reasons, why not send them off in the right direction? This would allow each article to focus on its own content without all the mish-mash of confusion about other similiarly named ranks/positions. — MrDolomite • Talk 20:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Good suggestions for the most part. My answers are below. -OberRanks 20:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
About Washington and Pershing
Currently a redirect to General of the Armies
  • General of the Army (United States) (World War II rank)
The 5 star rank for Marshall, MacArthur, etc.
The U.S. General of the Army article is well put together and explains the difference between the Civil War version and moren version. No need to split it; that might actually confuse people. -OberRanks 20:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • General of the Army (United States) (Civil War)
For the position, not really a rank, which Grant held
Same comment as above. Already explained well in the General of the Army U.S. article rank. -OberRanks 20:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • General of the Army (disambiguation)
The disambiguation page with a list of the articles above, and those listed on current version of General of the Army
General of the Army already serves this purpose and is pretty good as it stands. -OberRanks 20:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Rather than different pages, I think these different topics should be different sections on one page. Their history is all related. And articles on them should explain how they relate to each other, which could best be done if they are on the same page. And a Table of Contents at the top of the page would make it easy for people to find what they want. - Shaheenjim 20:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
General of the Army (United States) already speaks about the modern day rank and the Civil War rank in one article. General of the Armies then in turn speaks of the General of the Armies rank. So far, you've had three people against the proposal to join General of the Armies and Geenral of the Army and for very good reason: the two are separate ranks entirely. -OberRanks
For my response to that, I refer you to my last few comments in the Civil War Rank/Merging section, which you have not yet addressed. - Shaheenjim 01:29, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
As I said before, General of the Armies and General of the Army are two separate ranks. Even your pal M. Kup is against merging the page and, as you can see, this was discussed a year or two ago and people didnt want to merge it then either and right now you have four people saying they are against the merge. You seem to be standing alone with this; might be best to go with the concensus. I for one think it would be very damaging to this article to attempt a merge with General of the Army. It would make people think that General of the Armies is just a title expanded to certain officers who were already a General of the Army. Rather, this is a separate rank, has a place of honor amongst the U.S. military establishment, has its own source mateerial, and therefore should stay a separate article. With that beating of the dead horse, I'll let the subject rest. -OberRanks 02:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
If we merged the article we could still make it clear that there are separate ranks involved. When this was discussed a year or two ago people didn't have all the information I recently brought to the conversation. The horse is hardly dead when you haven't even addressed the questions I asked in my last few comments in the Civil War Rank/Merging section. If you're unwilling or unable to respond to them, then you don't have to, but that's not a very convincing argument. - Shaheenjim 04:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1798 General of the Armies

There was talk of appointing George Washington to General of the Armies of the United States in 1798. The non-war with France blew over, Washington died, and in 1800 the rank General of the Armies expired. [3][4]. What I have never seen are references to when and why the rank "General of the Armies of the United States" was created. I wanted to research creation of the rank and then was planning on adding a history section or something similar as the rank was around for 120 years before it was awarded to Pershing. It certainly pre-dates the civil war. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 10:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should expand this article to include information about the "General of the Armies" rank that Washington almost got when he was alive. - Shaheenjim 16:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There are references to General of the Armies as early as 1798 or 1799 when it was proposed that George Washington be awarded the rank. What I have not seen is when and why the rank was created. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Figurehead rank

This is speculation on my part by I believe that General of the Armies of the Unites States is is more of a figurehead rank while a General of the Army exercises direct control/management of the Army. When the General of the Armies of the Unites States rank was discussed for Washington he was 66 years old and apparently was not in shape to actually manage the Army. I believe the citations are the same as the ones I listed above. It's been a long day for me and I don't feel like thinking. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 10:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that "General of the Armies" is just a figurehead rank. Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies in 1919, and he didn't retire until 1924. - Shaheenjim 16:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
You are correct in that the rank seems to be a honorary or figurehead rank where the rank-holders did not seem to have direct command authority over an army. A General of the Army does have direct command authority and this is another reason why the ranks should not be merged. However, I'd need to see citable sources on if this lack of direct command authority is a feature of the title or if that just happens to be the way it worked out for George Washington 1799, Pershing 1919, and George Washington 1976. I have not followed Douglas MacArthur and so don't know if he did did not have command authority at the time he would have been a General of the Armies. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
You seem to have misinterpreted my previous message. - Shaheenjim 19:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I understood it but had assumed by 1919 Pershing did not have direct command authority in the Army. Let's assume he did, John Pershing is not clear on this, meaning a General of the Armies is sometimes a figurehead (as was proposed for George Washington in 1799) and presumably George Washington in 1976. I'm starting to get the feeling that we can't make a stand one way or another in the Wikipedia article about this until someone uncovers source documentation on just what a General of the Armies is or is not. We can state that GW #1 was retired from Army life, GW #2 was dead, and need to dig up exactly what roles Pershing and Marshall had in the Army at the time. These roles though don't seem to have relevance or bearing on the General of the Armies rank. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

I have thought about proposing that the General of the Armies article be renamed to "General of the Armies of the Unites States" as in the past year we have dug up the source documentation that uses this title consistently. A secondary change is to rename the article to rename the article to "General of the Armies (Unites States)" to get it in line with other U.S. officer rank pages on Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Just in case anyone is curious, I couldn't possibly care less whether we call this article "General of the Armies," "General of the Armies of the United States," or "General of the Armies (United States)." - Shaheenjim 19:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


General of the Armies of the United States

Since the entire formal title is not used that much, "General of the Armies" is the more common saying, and more commonly appears in texts and publications. Therefore, this title should stay as is. -OberRanks 20:44, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd concur other than suggesting the article be renamed General of the Armies (United States) to get the article in line with other Wikipdedia articles about U.S. Army officer ranks and to later open the way for a more General of the Armies article that's not specific to the Unites States. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I didn't think there were any Generals of the Armies that weren't specific to the United States. - Shaheenjim 19:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
True, I just happen to like consistency and as the other U.S. Army officer ranks have "(United States)" after the title I had proposed the same for General of the Armies. It's not a big issue with me. I brought up the suggestion about changing the title as for a while there was some confusion as to what the "correct" title was. The following titles have been used interchangeably at times for the same individual which lead to confusion.
  • General of the Army
  • General of the Army of the Unites States
  • General of the Armies
  • General of the Armies of the Unites States
Recently, the original source documents for Pershing, MacArthur and Washington (1976) have been located and all of them agreed on "General of the Armies of the Unites States" leading me to propose renaming the main article and having General of the Armies redirect to General of the Armies of the United States. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 00:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article recreated from redirect

I have undone the revision which merely redirected this article to General (United States). They are NOT the same rank. And there is no problem leaving them as separate articles. If that was the case, then all military rank articles throughout should be merged into a single article. Um, no. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

No one is suggesting that they are currently the same rank. The General (United States) article explains very clearly that the ranks are currently different. So it's not as if covering them both on the same article will cause people to think they're currently the same rank. But the history of the ranks is intertwined. The General (United States) article already covers all the information that is included in this article, so there's no need to have separate articles. Overlap should be minimized. This is not the same as saying that all military rank articles should be merged into a single article, because the history of all military ranks are not intertwined. It's just these few. For further discussion, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Discussion_for_various_United_States_General_articles for a common discussion area. - Shaheenjim 19:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My edit

Someone reverted to a version of the page before my recent edit on the grounds that it's OR or POV. It isn't. If you think specific parts are OR or POV, specifiy which ones.

It's also been suggested that it's an attempt to merge this article with another article, and that's true, but that's not grounds for a revert. I haven't added additional topics to the article. I just added information from other articles that relate to the topics that this article already covered. There's nothing wrong with that. - Shaheenjim 03:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want, we can use one specific passage as an example. My recent edit added the passage:
In an Act of the United States Congress on March 3, 1799, Congress provided "that a Commander of the United States shall be appointed and commissioned by the style of General of the Armies of the United States and the present office and title of Lieutenant General shall thereafter be abolished."
That's neither OR nor POV. And it's not on a topic that is inappropriate for this article. - Shaheenjim 03:09, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do not merge without consensus

Shaheenjim, there has been absolutely no consensus or agreement to do the merging of the articles. Period.

I consider this whole business of "they really were the same rank" to be original research as I have not seen anything from Congress or the military that stated the ranks were the same. We could pick up a single data point, let's say that in 1888 Lieutenant General was discontinued and merged in that of General of the Army as part of the Sheridan promotion. Does this mean that Lieutenant General and General of the Army are the same rank and they should be merged on Wikipedia? In my mind the answer is "no." The only thing I see there is that in 1888 Congress and the military no longer needed the rank of Lieutenant General on the books.

Likewise with General of the Army and General of the Armies. As they have similar names some people have confused them but the ranks have always always been distinct. When Congress appointed Grant, Sherman, and then Sheridan to General of the Army that's the exact title that was awarded and not General of the Armies. General of the Army and General of the Armies are not the same and they have never been stated to be the same on the source documents available from the military or Congress.

Any edits to articles that are not backed by specific citations to original source material should be reverted. Ideally, the edits should be done one at a time and the wording of them should match as closely as possible the wording used on the original source documents. Anything else risks drift into original research or not NPOV. This will give people a chance to review the source document and the edit to see if their understanding of the source document agrees with the editor that contributed to Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 03:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't merge the articles because I thought they were the same rank. In fact, after I merged them, the article said very clearly that they were different ranks. I merged the articles because each page described the same history, and I wanted to minimize the overlap of the discussion of the history of the ranks. For example, the history of George Washington's rank is discussed on all three of the articles General (United States), General of the Army (United States), and General of the Armies. Not because those three ranks are the same, but because the history of Washington's rank is relevant to all three ranks. There's no point saying the same thing in three different places.
Also, just because I did multiple edits at once does not make them OR or POV. That's ridiculous. - Shaheenjim 04:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


I've restored the article to the last good version I could find. The revision up there before was full of partial merges from other articles, OR, and also incorrect statements such as the statement no one on active duty has ever held this rank (Pershing was very much active when he held it). I apologize in advance if I undid any legit edits in the process; but the bulk of the material was very misleading. -OberRanks 12:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I reverted your revert. The current version does not have any OR or incorrect statements. It does not say that no one on active duty has ever held the rank. It says that no one on active duty has ever held the rank at the same time as other people held all the other ranks. See the difference? Specifically, there has never been an active duty General of the Armies and an active duty General of the Army at the same time. So we don't know for sure how General of the Armies should compare to General of the Army.
If you can't understand any other specific things about the article, let me know and I'll explain them to you. - Shaheenjim 15:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I've addressed my concerns under Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger -OberRanks 03:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First sentence

The first sentence of this articles makes no sense, specifically the part which reads:

"has never been used by an active duty Army officer at the same time as all the other ranks, so it is not clear how it compares to them."

SJ is reverting attempts tochange this sentence, so I guess we will discuss it here for now. -OberRanks 04:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what part of that is confusing you. Do you think there are multiple possible interpretations of it, and you're not sure which one I'm attempting to portray? If so, list the possibilities, and I'll identify the correct one. - Shaheenjim 04:29, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
John Pershing held the rank on active duty. If your intent is to say the rank wasnt held at the same time as General of the Army, thats true. But to say it was never held on active duty at the same time as every other United States military rank is not true. -OberRanks 05:22, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I acknowledge that John Pershing held the rank on active duty. It was my intent to say the rank wasn't held at the same time as General of the Army. General of the Army is one of the United States military ranks. Therefore General of the Armies was never held on active duty at the same time as every other United States military rank. I don't know why you're having so much trouble understanding that. - Shaheenjim 05:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have a minor problem with the way it's worded and was the first reason for my previous bulk reverts. George Washington was awarded General of the Armies posthumously and as he's still dead he presumably still hold the rank. I've edited the first sentence to note that no active officers hold the rank. I also deleted the second sentence for a couple of reasons. 1) I found it confusing, particularly as one of the first sentences of the article as the "other ranks" are not listed. 2) It conflicted with verified source material such as that as Pershing was acknowledged as senior others including General of the Army and that McArthur was considered for promotion from General of the Army to General of the Armies, and that the promotion order for Washington (1976) states "no officer of the United States Army should outrank Lieutenant General George Washington on the Army list." This allows for other General of the Armies of equal rank (Pershing). What's less clear of ranks with other titles (General of the Army in the mid 1800s, Lieutenant General in the mid 1800s, etc.) were equal in "rank" to General of the Armies. I suspect many people would view General of the Armies as being the top rank.
Another option is to do what the CMH did which is to state it's often not possible to compare ranks from different eras but that at least for this era Congress seems to have made General of the Armies the top rank when they awarded it to George Washington and a bit earlier when Pershing was acknowledged to have outranked others. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 08:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
We know that IF the rank had been given to MacArthur, then it would have been established as a six star rank that is superior to General of the Army. But it wasn't given to MacArthur, so his case doesn't prove that it is a six star rank that is superior to General of the Army.
We know that Pershing was considered senior to the WW2 Generals of the Army. But I don't think that means that General of the Armies is a higher rank than General of the Army. They could be equal, and Pershing's seniority could be a result of the fact that he achieved his rank earlier than the WW2 Generals of the Army achieved their rank.
We know that no one outranks Washington. But it could mean that the WW2 Generals of the Army have equal rank to him.
Therefore, my claim that we don't know how General of the Armies compares to General of the Army is correct, relevant, and important, so I'm restoring it. If you want to change the wording to the CMH wording, that's fine. But I think they're just saying the same thing I am, so I don't see how that would be different. - Shaheenjim 14:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
OberRanks, if you continue to revert my edit without addressing my post above, I'm going to go back to the administrators and complain that you're still refusing to follow wikipedia's dispute resolution policy by refusing to engage in discussion. I'll wait a bit first though. - Shaheenjim 17:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pershing

One of the things lost in the edit war was the section on Pershing. I don't have time today to resurrect him. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 08:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It was merged into the main General (United States) article as "World War I". -OberRanks 08:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I put the section on Pershing back. He was one of only two people awarded the rank and so it makes sense to have a section about him plus it allows for the lead in to the insignia section where Pershing opted to wear four gold stars. The sections on individual offers in General (United States) seem like they have too much detail for an article that supposed to be about the history of "General". Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 08:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why we should repeat the history of the rank here when we already have a link to the history of the rank on another page, which is the same thing, word for word. But if you think it's worth mentioning here, then we can put a summary, and link people to the other page for more information. - Shaheenjim 14:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
SJ, I dont think reverting MKs edits helped anything. He is correct in what he says: the first sentence is confusing and the section on Pershing should be in this article since Pershing very clearly held this rank as his final grade with such info about him and position mentionable here instead of on the general General (no pun intended) article. I am really really hoping you will not start another edit war and work with us here. Please. -OberRanks 15:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I already explained the reason why I reverted Marc Kupper's edits. If you have a response to my explanation, go ahead and give it. Until them, I'm going to revert it again. I don't know why you think you can keep reverting my edits while ignoring my explanations of why I made the edits. - Shaheenjim 15:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I put the section on Pershing as a sub-section on Modern Usage. It is properly cited and provides specific information about who, how, when, where and why the rank was awarded the first time. There is both a note in my edit summary and on this page.16:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MrDolomite (talk • contribs)
As I said, I don't see why we should repeat the history of the rank here when we already have a link to the history of the rank on another page, which is the same thing, word for word. I think it'd be better to have a summary and a link to the other page for more information. - Shaheenjim 16:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely, put summary on one page and link to the other that has the details. It's my understanding the main dispute is over where the details should go and was advocating a model where various articles would each have the details about the specific topic of that article. That means details directly relevant to General of the Armies, including its history, would go on the General of the Armies page and other pages would summary/link to General of the Armies as needed when General of the Armies applies to their topic area. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 00:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
I think if we're only going to have the details of the history of the Lieutenant General rank on one article, and we're only going to have the details of the history of the General rank on one article, and we're only going to have the details of the history of the General of the Army rank on one article, and we're only going to have the details of the history of the General of the Armies rank on one article, then we should use the General (United States) article for all of them. That way if people want to see the details of the history of all the ranks, it's all in one place for them.
It also makes sense because the histories of all those ranks are related. The ranks are separate now, but keep in mind: the General of the Army rank and the General of the Armies rank both used to be three star ranks, and they both used to be four star ranks. (Congress passed legislation to give Washington the General of the Armies rank as a three-star rank, although he died before it happened. And Sheridan had the General of the Army rank as a three-star rank. Grant had the General of the Army rank as a four-star rank. And Pershing had the General of the Armies rank as a four-star rank.) The user Morinao and I have been having this same conversation on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, and he agreed with me on this point. - Shaheenjim 01:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, my position is basically the same as Marc Kupper's. Since the histories of this ranks are all intertwined, as you say, there needs to be a single article that contains a unified historical narrative covering all of the ranks at some general level of detail. However, to keep that narrative readable, many of the details specific to individual ranks need to be broken out into separate articles. So what's needed is a summary history of all the ranks in one central article, and detailed histories of individual ranks in dedicated articles, so that if someone is only interested in the legislative history of General of the Armies, for example, he doesn't have to wade through a legislative history of pre-World War II lieutenant generals to find what he wants, but can simply click a hyperlink; and vice versa.
Also, it's true that only one article should contain all of the details of the General of the Armies rank. That doesn't mean that all of those details should only be contained in that one article. Clicking a hyperlink should be like using a magnifying glass. If you 'zoom in' on the history of the General of the Armies rank by following a hyperlink from the General (United States) page, you should find a more detailed history on the General of the Armies page, not just a link back to the history section of the General (United States) page.
Sorry for the confusion here; I know I said the history should all go in the General (United States) page, but at the time there was a particular chunk of text that was replicated across multiple articles and contained a generic history of all the ranks, and what I meant was that this generic history should all be removed from the rank-specific articles and placed in the generic General (United States) page. Each rank-specific article should be comprehensive and focused, and therefore should include the detailed history of the individual rank, but not the generic history of all the ranks. Morinao 06:11, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Shaheenjim, from what I've read on the talk pages so far I believe everyone agrees with what you want to do with General (United States) but what there's a consistent objection to the level of detail you want to include on that page. As you noted, the most senior Army officer has worn three, four, and five stars at times and that titles from Lieutenant General to General of the Armies have been used. There's room there for lots of detail that's specific to the overall topic of General (United States). Attempting to insert additional details such as the legislative history of individual promotions, would distract people from the main thread which would be about the number of stars, titles used, etc. For example, probably all you need to say about George Washington's 1976 appointment is:
In 1976, George Washington was awarded General of the Armies. As it was posthumous, no insignia was created for this appointment.
This deals effectively with the two of the main article threads you brought up which are the number of stars and the specific rank/grade title used without needing to introduce additional information/distraction. It's also NPOV, sourced, verifiable, etc. in that there's a link to General of the Armies which backs up all of the claims made in this statement. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 09:53, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war destroys introduction

Great, now the introduction and early sections of this article are just repeating the same information in different order with different links. Lets find a way to make this look like a real article, not like it was written by an elementary school student doing his first report. — MrDolomite • Talk 16:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I agree. I think we are all (most of us anyway) in agreement that this "it was not held at the same time as other ranks" stuff is confusing and inaccurate. Agreeing on that would be a good start since thats what sparked the edit war. -OberRanks 16:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. The introduction keeps being changed, so I'm not sure what version you're talking about. What section in the body of the article is a repeat of what section in the introduction? - Shaheenjim 16:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Regardless of what I'm talking about, you are now very close to breaking WP:3RR which can get you blocked. Stop this edit warring. Please. -OberRanks 17:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the warning. I'll wait until tomorrow to revert it again. In the meantime, here's a reminder of my warning to you: If you continue to revert my edit without addressing my post (far) above, I'm going to go back to the administrators and complain that you're still refusing to follow wikipedia's dispute resolution policy by refusing to engage in discussion. I'll wait a bit first though. - Shaheenjim 17:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the administrators would love to hear what you have to say, just like they did when you asked I be banned for challenging your edits. In any event, as I've started an RfC, approached you on the talk page, asked you to stop edit warring, and even warned you about 3RR I think Ive done what I need to do. The fact that you just admitted that you will continue edit warring, but will simply wait until tomorrow morning to thus circumvent 3RR, is a very good example of your edit patterns. As far as your threat, please PLEASE go to the administrators. I would love to see what happens. -OberRanks 17:38, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protected due to edit war

If I were to block anyone one for disruptive edit warring and gaming 3RR, I would have had to have blocked just about everyone involved. Instead, the article is protected for a week.

Take this time to discuss, rationally, what you wish the end result to be. If you resume edit warring once the protection lapses, I will start blocking people (particularly if you fail to engage in any discussion during this week). I suggest either drafting the article here or on a sub page (e.g. General of the Armies/draft).

Note I have protected the page on the latest version, and make no judgement as to its quality and accuracy or lack thereof. See m:The Wrong Version before complaining about this. Now, discuss rather than edit war. Neil ☎ 18:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Neil! I will actually be going on a trip next week so will not be around to see what happens. -OberRanks 18:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that shortly after Neil protected this article, SJ posted a request to the talk page that I be banned from Wikipedia [5]. I think that shows how willing this user is to work with others. In any event, as this article is protected until next week, and as I am leaving for a trip at the same time and will be gone awhile, my involovment with this article probably wont be too high for the rest of the year. While I'm sure that might make SJ happy, I encourage everyone to work together and find an article that fits the facts. I also left this message for SJ hoping that it makes the user a bit easier to work with. With that, the best to everyone and good night. [6] -OberRanks 19:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Neil. My view is that this article and its discussion page are about the rank or grade of General of the Armies (of the Unites States). The text of the article is specific to that rank and provides details plus verified citations on who held/holds it, and who was almost awarded the rank. To date, several people had been working on locating additional verifiable source material and using that as a foundation for edits to the article. For a long time there has been a sense of cooperative community as various people ran across source material and made it available.
With respect to the topic “General of the Armies” there are also secondary articles, such as the Military career of George Washington, John J. Pershing, and General (United States) that each have a broader scope and mention General of the Armies as it is relevant to the broader scope of those articles. With many of the articles, such as Military career of George Washington General of the Armies is mentioned with minimal detail and links to the General of the Armies article which provides details and verified citations specific to the General of the Armies topic. I believe this is a good model and serves to keep each of the articles focused on their main topic area while not overloading people with unrelated detail. Having the bulk of the details in topic specific articles, such as General of the Armies, is also a good model in that it reduces the chance for conflicting information between articles as people make corrections.
I also believe there is value to having an article that gives an overview and focus on the rank or grade of General (United States) and am happy to see and support Shaheenjim’s efforts to improve that article.
It is my belief though that details and citations directly relevant to the grade or rank of General of the Armies belong in the General of the Armies article. If there are references to General of the Armies in other articles, such as General (United States) they would be done without a lot of supporting detail. Military career of George Washington is a perfect example of this with respect to General of the Armies.
A second issue is I would like to see much, if not all, of the information in General of the Armies directly linked to verifiable source material. Ideally, General of the Armies should be both easy and fun to read while also showing that all of the material contained in the article is directly supported by verifiable source documents. There has been some edit warring as parties made revisions to the article that either were not sourced or conflicted with available verifiable source material.
Overall, I’m fine with the current protected state of this article – there are some outstanding issues that we have discussed in the past but they are minor and long standing and so I won’t list those as needing correction the coming week. There is one immediate item I would like handled but will address that in a separate section below. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia's requirements on verifiability requires all information to be verifiable. I would suggest a good place to start in resolving these disputes would be to ensure any added material is sourced - not "could be sourced in the future", sourced when added. Also, to try and source everything else, too - to the extent of considering removing information that you cannot source. Neil ☎ 09:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please remove redirect

{{editprotected}} On 18 October 2007 the General of the armies page was hijacked and redirected it to General (United States). Please revert the edit of 18 October 2007 so that General of the armies once again redirects to General of the Armies. I know I could do the revert myself as General of the armies is not protected but as General of the armies was the same page as the protected (and disputed) General of the Armies I'm asking for the revert via the editprotected mechanism. Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I reverted it. I don't understand why you didn't do it yourself, but it doesn't really matter. - Shaheenjim 23:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move page

Should this article be retitled General of the Armies (United States), in keeping with what appears to be usual Wikipedia practice? PKKloeppel (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

That would imply there are other articles about General of the Armies, like General of the Armies (Russia) or General of the Armies (China). This is a unique rank only used by the USA; therefore, adding such a suffix would be just repeating the obvious. -OberRanks (talk) 14:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
See #Article title on this page. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rank

Okay, so it may be my stupidity but I have always been told that the current President of the United States outranks anyone. This seems to be confirmed by the Commander in Chief article which states "As Commander-in-Chief, the U.S. President outranks any military officer and so has the inherent right to assume command on the battlefield. However, because presidents are rarely present in war zones, and often have less military experience than the military commanders, only two presidents, George Washington and James Madison, have so far done so. " Would not that statement make the President of the United States the "highest possible" rank in the United States Army" instead of the "General of the Armies" (see first sentence) therefore not making the "General of the Armies and General of the Armies of the United States" the "highest possible' ranks? (Nicolaususry (talk) 19:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC))

First of all, on talk pages, please add new topics to the bottom of the page (see WP:TALK). Commander-in-chief is not a rank, but is analogous to an assignment or position. For example, on an aircraft carrier, there may be multiple officers with the rank of Captain even though only one of them is the Captain of the ship, and has authority over the other officers with the same rank. On smaller ships, the the commanding officer may be a Lieutenant Commander or Commander, but is called the Captain of the ship, even though he/she does not hold the rank of Captain. I bring this up to show the difference between rank and assignment (often called billet). The President is not a member of the Armed Forces, and does not hold a military rank, but has carries the "assignment" of C-in-C and has authority over all of the Armed Forces personnel. --rogerd (talk) 21:09, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I just got done working in the peer review section and my brain had not changed gears :). Per rank... I understand the armed forces to use rank in the way you describe. Without "assignment" (if I remember right), a Captain who held Captain longer has authority over the other Captain if question of authority without time for clarification by higher Chains of Command becomes neccisary. I understand the head of a ship or other military instrument is the reigning authority within the constraints of that ship or other military instrument during normal operation, also (please correct me here if I'm wrong). Now, what I would like to do is figure out what needs to be changed in the Wikipedia articles. The Constitution says "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;" [1] . The Constitution seems to suggest that when the President is in actual "Service" of the Army (thus a member?), he does have higher authority than a "General of the Armies", but not rank. I agree with your reading here. Does this mean the wording on the Commander-in-Chief page need to be changed to reflect this "higher authority" over "outranks" because the President serves as an "assignment" within the Armed Forces? Thanks again for the help. I'm still relatively new to Wikipedia editing as you can see by the mistake on posting. Best (Nicolaususry (talk) 19:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC))

By the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, the President of the United States answers to the voters of the electorate, i.e. his "boss" is the American people. One could therefore say that the American people are in turn the true superiors of the military. Indeed, a common phrase in the military is that "we work for the taxpayers" and our funding is totally controlled by the Congress whose members are selected by the American people. This is the very concept of "civilian control of the military" in that any civilian citizen of the United States must always be seen as being superior to someone in uniform. We work for them and we answer to them and we serve to protect them. Now, from a practical point of view, a citizen can't call a general and order him to go do something. But they can write their member of Congress and question what the military is doing and the military must then answer to that Congressman who is representing the citizen. "Go write your congressman" might be a phrase joked about, but it does work. A perfect example is the father of that soldier stationed in the sub-standard barracks. He demanded answers through his representatives and the Secretary of Defense himself apologized directly for the mistake. Very few other countries would have something like that happen. That’s what makes America what it is. -OberRanks (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks OberRanks... I kinda got that from my Government class too. The conversation here is about "rank" vs. "appointment" and whether wording needs to be changed in Wikipedia articles because the President (appointed by us) is notated to "outrank" everyone else in the U.S. Armed Forces according to the Commander-in-Chief article. I had always been told that the President "outranks" everyone in the U.S. Armed Forces, but apparently he is a higher authority to the Armed Forces. Now that I've cleared that up (thanks rogerd), I'm thinking of moving this over to that article's talk page. I've never done that before, so... (Nicolaususry (talk) 23:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC))

We should be careful assuming everyone on this site knows the difference. People of other countries, in particular the Middle East where most of the Heads of State are also military officers, don't sometimes understand this concept of having a civilian with absolutely no military rank in charge of the entire military. Even in the UK some people find this confusing I've discovered due to the whole "Royal family granted military rank system" (which I don't entirely understand). So, I didnt mean to patronize and give a government class; I just wasn't sure what your background was and, as stated, this should be kept in mind when dealing wityh non-US citizens who might read these articles. -OberRanks (talk) 15:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Nicolaususry - let me correct a small mis-reading of the constitution on your part. You quoted the following:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

– Article II, Section 2, Constitution of the United States of America

The clause "when called into the actual Service of the United States" refers to the Militia (now National Guard) in that they are under state control and are not under the authority of the President unless called up into Federal service. The Militia Act of 1903 further clarified and defined this relationship. --rogerd (talk) 01:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. So what exactly is your suggestion on the wording. (Nicolaususry (talk) 15:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC))