Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/United States military history task force/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Hope it's the right page!

Hi everybody! WOW! I'm really impressed, how huge this project is! So, i think i finally found the right page to ask my questions. If not, please drop me a line! Currently I'm doing some research on the history of Tacoma, WA. In some old newspaperclips I found two names General McCarver and General Sprague. I can't find any information about this guys. Here is all I have:

  1. McCarver, died April 1875/co-founder of Tacoma, full name: Matthew Morton McCarver, General(?)
  2. General Sprague, visited Tacoma on Dec. 16th 1873 to drive the last spike to complete the railroad between Tacoma and Kalama.

I couldn't find both of them in the "List of the US-Generals" Have the REALLY been Generals? Does anyone have some information? THANKS A LOT! --Hedwig in Washington 00:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

These aren't necessarily reliable sources, but should be useful as a starting point:
Both of these men are quite deserving of articles, if anyone has the time to write them. Kirill Lokshin 01:38, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
8-))))) Thanks a lot!!!! That helps! I found just another source: [7] I'm not sure, if I can write a complete article in english. Maybe a stub? Doing my Tacoma article first and we see what I can do. Would you proofread? Thank you very much for your information again! --Hedwig in Washington 09:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


Category:Native American wars

The nesting here seems to be an utter mess; some of these shouldn't be under Category:Wars of the United States, and most shouldn't be under Category:Military history of Canada. It's also not clear what this category is for, exactly. I'm not an expert on this topic by any means, but a bit of poking around suggests the following setup:

  1. Create a Category:Wars of the Native Americans under Category:Wars by country. This would absorb the current contents of the existing category, but wouldn't be nested under the US category.
  2. Create a Category:Indian Wars (for the specific series of conflicts that go by that name) under Category:Wars of the Native Americans and move everything that applies into it.
  3. Add the other combatant categories (e.g. Category:Wars of the United States, Category:Wars of the United Kingdom, etc.) directly to the specific war categories/articles where they're applicable, but not to the two "main" categories above.

Thoughts? Would this work, or have I missed something obvious? Kirill Lokshin 22:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Questions/comments:
  1. the names of articles and categories can be misleading. I would not use names, as such, to determine into what category an article or sub-category is be placed.
  2. before doing anything new, a decision needs to be made whether to consistently name the new categories with the word 'Native American', or 'Indian' or what.
  3. I would like to see a draft of the 'purpose' of each new/content revised category: the purpose to be written into each such category as its reason for existing and how that category is different from similar categories.
  4. Thanks Hmains 02:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Replies, in order:
  1. Ideally, we'd like for the contents to be pretty obvious from the name; but, at the very least, they should be consistent with the contents of similarly-named and similarly-nested categories.
  2. I think there's room for both; "Native American" can be used when discussing the people/groups involved, while "Indian" applies when the specific group of conflicts ("Indian Wars") is being referred to.
  3. My take is as follows:
Kirill Lokshin 08:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Further comments
Is it so important to separate events that occurred before and after 1776 or 1783? Certainly the U.S. started, but the on-the-ground reality, both to white settlers and to American Indians, continued pretty much without a break: the whites wanted Indian land; the Indians wanted to keep their land. Binary situation. The result: wars.
U.S. history and pre-U.S. history (at least the history of the East Coast) are separate, to be sure, but are kept together by higher level categories. Again, basic continuity, not a major break.
While I am primarily an 'organizer' of things and have no great feelings about this, others seem to have feelings of varying strength. Look at the talk page for 'Indian Wars' article for past discussions. You may want to obtain some input from them.
Thanks Hmains 00:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
More replies:
  • I think that, more important than separating US and pre-US is separating in-present-US and out-of-present US. While we can make an argument for keeping pre-1776 wars in, say, New York, in the US categories, this becomes much more tenuous when we start lumping things that ocurred in Alberta or Mexico into them (regardless of date); we then wind up getting things like Battle of Sitka categorized as a US conflict, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the US aside from the fact that the territory was later sold to it.
  • I'll see what I can do about getting further input for this, though.
Kirill Lokshin 00:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Kirill for telling me of this discussion. I think you guys have touched upon the important points. Some thoughts:
  1. "Native American" is a problematic term on Wikipedia. Generally, Canadians don't like the term "American" used to describe anything within their borders unless it unambiguously refers to North America. They hear the term "Native American" and think "Native of the United States", rather than "Native of the Americas", which is what "Native American" often means in the United States. The Merriam-Webster online definition of "Native American" notes that the term applies to natives of "especially the U.S." If we avoid using the term "Native American" when we mean "Natives of North America", we might avoid some problems.
  2. There is a Category:Indigenous peoples of North America. We could make the war category correspond with that: Category:Wars of Indigenous peoples of North America. It's a horribly wordy way of saying Category:Native American wars or Category:Indian Wars, but political correctness in the U.S. and Canada has dealt us the cards we have to play.
  3. The distinction between "Native American wars" (wars for North American Natives in general) and "Indian Wars" (wars between Indians and the United States) was an experimental one that I introduced on Wikipedia. It was probably a bad idea. I now think "Indian Wars" is used too loosely by writers to be of much use to us. The current article "Indian Wars" should really be renamed Wars between the United States and American Indians, with colonial material part of something like Wars between Europeans and American Indians.
—Kevin 13:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I think I have to agree with Kevin's second point here, reluctantly, as I can't suggest anything simpler and accurate. Rmhermen 17:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, going from Kevin's points:
The only major question I have: there are a bunch of personnel and units (primarily U.S. personnel and units) currently lumped under Category:Native American wars. Normal categorization rules suggest that they should be branched out into something like Category:People of the X War; but we don't seem to have a good name for this entire conflict, and Category:People of the wars of the indigenous peoples of North America seems somewhat clunky. Is there a more concise term we could use, or are we going to have to stick with the longer form? Kirill Lokshin 17:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I think we can have a sub-category of Category:Wars of Indigenous peoples of North America which is specifically about wars between the United States and American Indians. Call it, perhaps, Category:Wars between the United States and American Indians, since the traditional names—Indian Wars, Native American wars—while uncontroversial in the U.S., are potentially ambiguous because they don't necessarily exclude non-U.S. wars. People and U.S. units could go in a sub-category of that, though this will still make for a long category name. Make sense? —Kevin 18:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I think so. Conceptually, we could approach this (at least from the standpoint of category names) as a case where "Wars between the United States and American Indians" was actually the name of a series of conflicts (like, say, "Crusades" or "Islamic conquests"), and would plug that phrase into the normal "X by war" category naming rules to get things like
and so forth. Granted, the names will still be long; but at least they'll be (superficially) consistent with similar categories. Kirill Lokshin 18:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Cool. If and when we're ready to do all that category tidying up, maybe Hmains will want the job -- he's a category junky! ;-) —Kevin 18:49, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've put in a request for an initial renaming here. Kirill Lokshin 15:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • In summary: what categories are currently being planned, what will be their major subcategories/supercategories, and (if not obvious) what will be their purpose/contents of each? Thanks Hmains 16:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, what we'd need are:
Anything obvious I've missed? Kirill Lokshin 16:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Bear River Expedition

I would like to bring this up to the attention of a larger audience of "U.S. Military History experts" and get perhaps a concensus on this issue.

About a year ago (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 11#Bear River Expedition) a question was raised if this expedition was identical to the Bear River Massacre.

So I ask the same thing again... are these identical events?

Hear me out before this idea gets squashed like it did before. I'm doing some very signficant research about the Bear River basin and its military history in the rough time frame of 1850-1870. There were several major military expeditions that occured in 1862-1863, with the Bear River Massacre being the culmination of many different skirmishes, and I even have dates of many of this more minor skirmishes (very few of which even merit a Wikipedia entry, to be honest). The only real incident I can find even close to 1859 was an incident where about 20 horses were stolen from some settlers in the Brigham City, Utah area, and a company of soldiers from Fort Hall were dispatched to investigate and try to return the horses, and "keep the peace" with the Shoshone. This action, really, doesn't deserve anything other than a footnote to another Wikipedia article. It certainly doesn't deserve mention as a full-fledged military campaign, or for that matter even being a seperate Wikipedia article... it isn't notable enough.

This also illustrates some of the problems with this issue, as it was at various times part of the Utah Territory, Oregon Territory, Washington Territory, Nebraska Territory, and Idaho Territory. Or to be more precise, this part of the USA was considered part of the "frontier" of the USA for almost the entire 19th century and was dumped into the lap of whomever didn't scream the loudest when it was tossed their way, with indiscriminate map makers in Washington D.C.

My argument here is that this military campaign never even happened in the first place, unless it is a mistaken and perpetuated error of dates that instead really happened in 1862-1863 with Col. Patrick Edward Connor. The absolute dearth of information about this military campaign, other than a very minor event listed just as a bullet point on a list of military engagements by the U.S. Army, lead me to think some historian from several years ago spontaneously "created" this military campaign out of thin air. No soldiers were ever involved here at all!

I remain open to the possibility that perhaps this was some military campaign that involved some other Bear River other than the one that crosses Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. But given the attention that the region recieved in the 1860's including the establishment of several nearby military posts throughout this time period, I don't see any other reasonable candidate. Is there any, and I mean any, source of information that discusses this expedition beyond just mentioning that it occured in 1859? --Robert Horning 13:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This is very curious indeed! The first reference cited by the existing stub is dated to 1896; assuming it is an accurate transcription, it becomes clear that if this was invented, it was not by a "historian from several years ago," but by the officers compiling the historical sketches.
Of more interest is the fact that the table where the expedition is listed is labeled as "DATES OF IMPORTANT CAMPAIGNS, ETC."; it is possible that this includes not only campaigns per se, but indeed any deployment of the units in question. It would then be possible that this expedition was merely the presence of cavalry in the area, and does not indicate any actual military activity. If this is the case, it would probably be best to merge it into the article on the relevant unit, or, failing that, into a general overview article on the Indian Wars or some aspect thereof. Kirill Lokshin 20:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I am also claiming that the military campaign of 1862-1863 can and ought to be claimed as a significant military campaign because of several factors: The number of casualties (both by the U.S. Army as well as by the Shoshone), the breadth of the campaign in terms of establishment of several new military posts and interactions with the "enemy" in terms of number of battles or engagements, and the long-term consequences of the actions of this campaign compared to the political situation that existed prior to its occurance. It certainly is as significant of a campaign as Operation Urgent Fury or Operation Just Cause. The 1862-1863 campaign is simply not listed at all on any of these lists.
As for these lists as including things other than significantly named military campaigns, I guess that is something that is up to rough interpretation. But I hardly see that the sending of a company of soldiers to small town to act as a local sheriff, where no real fighting even took place, to be comparable to any of the rest of these military campaigns.
Of course, this is apparently something that is an issue even beyond Wikipedia, and as such will not be easily resolved. It would be a very nice addition, however, if we listed on the Wikipedia article (factually speaking) that the historical fact that the campaign even existed has been questioned. This gets close to original research, unfortunately. --Robert Horning 21:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

United States Army Reserve

Just to let everyone know: United States Army Reserve is the project's Collaboration of the Fortnight; any contributions to the article will be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Roosevelts

Both Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and Theodore Roosevelt say they were both Jr.'s in the first line. That can't be right. Joe I 02:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I found this page from the Theordore Roosevelt Association with a section titled "What's in a name?" It's still a little confusing, but both (and all) of the articles on Wiki are correct in their naming system as far as the legacy of the Roosevelt family is concerned.
What's in a name? --ScreaminEagle 04:47, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request

There's a new peer review request for USS Simpson (FFG-56) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

18th Airborne Corps

From this week's Army Times:

XVIII Airborne Corps to lose 82nd, 101st

By Matthew Cox Staff writer


  • Within two years, the XVIII Airborne Corps will no longer have the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions under its wing.
  • In fact, the Fort Bragg, N.C., based corps is giving up command of all its traditional divisions to become one of three specialized headquarters designated to command combat deployments to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan.


  • The XVIII already gave up command of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., on Oct. 1 and is slated to give up control over the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., next year. It will let go of the 82nd and 101st by next year.
  • The mission of XVIII Airborne Corps will change in that it will focus more on its primary warfighting mission,” said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps.
  • The change is part of Forces Command’s Transformation Command and Control Plan, an effort to help the XVIII, along with I Corps at Fort Lewis, Wash., and III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, fit into the Army’s new modular brigade structure.
  • Now, these corps headquarters will be on a rotation to become the headquarters element of a deploying task force of units and not have to worry about managing units at home base.
  • The divisions and their brigade combat teams will report to Forces Command, which is moving to Fort Bragg around 2010.
  • The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 23:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Language

Is there a guide on military terms, specifically on capitalization? The use of capitals is all over the place in many articles, and I'd like to get a feel for this before making changes. I know the US military is now using Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 13:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Joint Publication 1-02 Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms is the closest you will come to a single source on language. Also, you need to look at the Unit Histor pages on the US Army Center for Military History website, and the US Army Institute of heraldry website. Both links are on the US Army page, and on the US Military History Project page. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 16:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Amchitka

There's a new peer review request for Amchitka that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 11:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

National Guard

  • Is there anyone within the Military History Wikiproject who is focusing on the improvement of United States National Guard related military history? If not, is there anyone who is similarly interested in the topic, and might be willing to put a bit of focus on it? For example, it is difficult (impossible?) right now to find in Wikipedia a comprehensive view of how many US NG folks are called up to active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it is, to me at least, impossible to find how many of the various guard personnel are on active duty doing various disaster relief, or state-governor-requested, etc. duty. My thought is that we have more info on the World Cup team from Trinidad and Tobago in Wikipedia and we ought to at least consider putting a bit more effort into improving the encyclopedic info on current National Guard callups. What say others? N2e 16:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Being a person who served in both the Regular Army and the New York Army National Guard, I can work on that from time to time. Actually there is a lot of information available on that subject. The various National Guard websites

  1. US National Guard Bureau
  2. National Guard Family Program
  3. US Army National Guard
  4. US Air National Guard
  5. National Guard Virtual Armory
  6. Alabama National Guard
  7. Alaska National Guard
  8. Arizona National Guard]
  9. Arkansas National Guard
  10. Califormia National Guard
  11. Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
  12. Connecticut National Guard
  13. Delaware National Guard
  14. Florida Department of Military Affairs
  15. Georgia National Guard
  16. Guam National Guard
  17. Hawaii National Guard
  18. Idaho National Guard
  19. Illinois National Guard
  20. Indiana National Guard
  21. Iowa National Guard
  22. Kansas Adjutant General's Department
  23. Kentucky Department of Military Affairs
  24. Louisiana National Guard
  25. Maine Army National Guard
  26. Maryland Department of the Military
  27. Massachusetts National Guard
  28. Michigan National Guard
  29. Missouri National Guard
  30. Minnesota National Guard
  31. Mississippi National Guard
  32. Montana National Guard
  33. Nebraska National Guard
  34. New Hampshire National Guard
  35. New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
  36. New York Department of Military and Naval Affairs
  37. North Carolina National Guard
  38. North Dakota National Guard
  39. Ohio National guard
  40. Oregon Military Department
  41. Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
  42. Puerto Rico National Guard
  43. Rhode Island National Guard
  44. South Carolina Military Department
  45. South Dakota National Guard
  46. Texas National Guard
  47. Utah National Guard
  48. Virginia National Guard
  49. Vermont National Guard
  50. Virgin Islands National Guard
  51. West Virginia National Guard
  52. Wisconsin National Guard
  53. Wyoming National Guard
  • More to be added

all post that kind of information, as does the Army and air force themselves. Another source are the Army and Air Force Times, which also have websites with electronic versions of their newspapers. Unlike civilian newspapers, they are the journal of record for military information that is released for public consumption, and normally publish such things as current troop strengths, etc. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 18:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a good start on the research Corneliusseon. Since many (all?) of the state guard units do not have an article page yet in WP, maybe a start would be a stub page for each state unit. Stub could include basic facts about how the national guard is organized relative to the US federal military, and how the Air and Army state units figure into it, and an external link to the pages you found in the list above. I would be willing to help start about a third or half of the state pages if someone would generate a template page with the correct boilerplate as a starter. Mvialt 03:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I created a stub article to serve as a first-pass 'template' for the various state Army National Guard units. The page has only a little Alabama-specific information at present. Any military project person would be most welcome to improve this stub. My intent is to develop the generality of the stub (the stuff that would work for many states) a bit further for a few days/weeks before we begin to add a whole lot of detail about the Alabama unit specifically. I am quite certain that this stub needs a lot of work before it would be ready to roll out to the other states' articles, so PLEASE look at it if you have the time. Mvialt 12:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
There are now state-level Army National Guard pages for Arkansas, Alaska, Arizona (extended existing page) and California, as well as the Alabama page we set up to use as an initial template. Mvialt 19:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
More state-level pages have now been added. List of pages showing status is at United States National Guard#National Guard Forces. That list will now auto-update as more pages are completed. Mvialt 15:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi all. I stumbled onto this series of articles looking in on a very out of character new page patrol.
IMO your template has some flaws with the introductory section: I will now repost what I dropped on User_talk:Mvialt and his responses: Garrie 03:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have created a large number of state-level national guard units. Please have a look at WP:MOS. Your introductory sections are way too long and they are identical. While this isn't a paper encyclopedia - maybe you need one State-level national guard units page, discussing the national/state missions etc (anything which stays the same regardless of unit). You can refer every unit article back to that one.

Also: These articles read as WP:OR. Provide secondary (or tertiary) sources or they will end up being nominated for deletion (not by me, I'm too inclusionist).

Your contributions are going well. But I'm sick of adding {{tl:intro length}} Garrie 05:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

PS just looked at Ohio Army NG - intro there is pretty good.Garrie 05:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC) PPS - please remove the "________ of soldiers" from your boilerplate. It makes the article look bad - please hide it with the marks until you know the number of troops.

More on state-level NG Units

Hi. I had a solid look at Utah Army National Guard. I have hidden significant chunks of that article which I think should be in an over-riding "state-based national guard" article. This is in the interest of improving the article...

Note, a majority of the people who want the full detail, will be prepared to read several articles to get it. Most of them, will read almost every one of these state-based national guard articles - so wouldn't making them read the same sentence 53 times be fairly annoying?

Everything I've hidden between marks, should go somewhere else, which every one of these articles can link to.

No, I'm not American but I'm an ex-reservist from Australia. I have specifically stayed away from Australian millitary articles based on WP:BIO - too involved to do it impersonally.Garrie 05:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Could the discussion please continue here on how to improve the template, before the series of articles continues to grow? I understand this series of articles is being groomed / mentored by a project but the over-riding policies, principles and practices of Wikipedia still apply (WP:MOS, WP:V, WP:OR etc)Garrie 03:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Fort Bliss

There's a new peer review request for Fort Bliss that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 14:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ho Chi Minh trail

There's a new request for A-Class status for Ho Chi Minh trail that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 15:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Battle of Raymond

There's a new peer review request for Battle of Raymond that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

U.S. Regiment article title standards

I've stumbled into a problem with a user who claims to have served the U.S. 3d Infantry Regiment, and he then believes to have some sort of authority when he thinks the article should be at 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment instead. However that does not conform to any standards as seen in the category Category:Regiments of the United States Army, and I've undone his moves twice now. However I am tired of discussing this with him as I have not set up the standards, but I guess someone here can explain to him why. See User talk:Johan_Elisson#Regarding the 3rd U.S.Infantry/US 3d Infantry move-back, the history of the page and Talk:U.S. 3d Infantry Regiment. – Elisson • T • C • 12:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not entirely sure why the articles are named as they are in the first place; my suspicion is that it was done for purposes of disambiguating various numbered regiments in different countries. Presumably, following whatever the official name of the thing is would be better than just coming up with an arbitrary standard ourselves; can anyone who knows more about this confirm what the official name actually is? Kirill Lokshin 16:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Official Homepage of the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment It is indeed the Third US Infantry Regiment. I hope I don't come across as snippy here, but I can't comprehend this confusion myself--if that is the official name of the regiment, it should be used, NOT another version put forth by a group of people, or one person, who think it looks better that way. The article should have been renamed to its proper title ages ago and kept that way. --ScreaminEagle 16:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, that seems sensible enough, then. Two questions, though:
Kirill Lokshin 17:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
TIOH shows it as 3D INFANTRY REGIMENT [8]. The Associated Press style would be 3rd Infantry Regiment. Note that both Soldiers and The Army Times use the AP Stylebook. I would think that 3rd Infantry Regiment (United States Army) would be the best solution. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 18:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is where the problem is coming from, so far as I see it:

The Wikipedia format, which Mr. Elisson keeps mentioning, isn't applicable in this case. The reason is this: because the Wikipedia format is assuming a completely different pattern. The Wiki format seems to be a system devised to keep things orderly. The problem isn't the AP Stylebook, or the MLA Stylebook, or The Chicago Manual of Style; this argument isn't even about the order of things on Wikipedia. It is about the official name of the unit.

The official name of the unit -- and, as I've posted this elsewhere, I served in H-Company, 3rd U.S. Infantry (TOG), from 1991-1994. The name, as it reads on every sign outside of every TOG building -- and most notably the sign outside Batallion Headquarters -- is The Third United States Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard"), "Official Escort to the President". It's on the CO's letterhead. It's on the website. It's on my form DD-214 (that would be the official U.S. Department of Defense military record from issued to every service member in the U.S.) on file down at the Cook County Courthouse. It's the official name of the unit. It is non-negotiable. But, for everyone's edification I'll explain why it is written this way:

Because, the 'U.S.', as it appears in the official name, serves as a unit designator. The reason why this was necessary: because, there was a time (back in the 1860's, during the American Civil War) when there were Confederate Army units also bearing the title '3rd Infantry Regiment'. The U.S. denotes that the unit was a Union regiment, not a Confederate regiment. This is particularly important being how close in proximity the 3rd U.S. Infantry was to enemy regiments in Virginia.

This isn't the '3rd Division', or the '3rd Corps' or the '3rd Army' that we are talking about. If it were, I don't think we'd be arguing. But, this is a single regiment and in fact, a regiment that out dates every other currently active in the U.S. Army. More specifically, the name out dates any standard format devised for keeping Wikipedia (or any other online encyclopedia for that matter) orderly.

It is an official title, not an arbitrary classification subject to the fit of whatever ambitions someone may be seeking.

Please stop switching it. Thank you. Ryecatcher773 28 Oct 2006, 20:49

Ehh, the real issue is that the "Wikipedia format" doesn't actually exist; it's, in this area, something that grew up out of a need to keep things tidy, with quite likely little thought being given to the subtleties involved.
Generally, I see no problem with using the official names here (on the basis of the "common name" principle, primarily); the real question is whether this will need to be done on a case-by-case basis, or whether all US Army regiments follow the same pattern in their official naming? Kirill Lokshin 02:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know off the top of my head how many units still use this format -- especially considering the antiquated nature of it. I don't believe, however, that there are many (if any) active regiments remaining that do. I do know that the other units that I served in didn't have the 'U.S.' designator as part of their respective names.

Ryecatcher773 28 Oct 2006, 21:23

Since this is becoming more about what standard to use, I would think this should be at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (military units). --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it's worthwhile getting dragged into that. The old draft is so outdated and so convoluted that it would likely be much easier to simply adopt proper conventions piece-by-piece and then compile them into a common standard after the fact, rather than trying to debate genral issues from the start. Kirill Lokshin 16:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
If I can put my two cents here, based on almost 26 years of service in the Army and National Guard, and my continuing access to official records of those two organizations, I must say that it has been the Army itself that has decided just how a unit is designated, as expressed in its specific Modification Table of Organization and Equipment (MTOE). If you go look at the section I placed on the US Army page in wikipedia, you will get the official chapter and verse on that score. There is also more information on this score in the pages I did on the Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS), and the US Army Regimental System (USARS). There are certainly some ideosyncratic unit designations - based certainly on historical considerations - but there also is a great deal of uniformity in this area. If you want to see the official designation of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, go look at the Unit History page on the US Army Center for Military History website, and 3rd IR's heraldic page on the US Army Institute of Heraldry Website. That should settle this issue. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 16:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Archive

Supposedly, this talk page was archived as of 13 October, but I don't see where it was actually moved to. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

There's an archive linked at the top of this page. :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships

There's a new peer review request for Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:32, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Kosovo war

This article is a mess and needs attention. Together with NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia could it be "adopted" by United States military history wikiproject? Mieciu K 22:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Question about Spam

I have recently seen some removals of links on American Revolutionary units and battles by Thadius claiming that the links were spam. Every external links to http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com were removed. This link was used since Wright's book "The Continental Army" that is available at the Center for military history does not have the lineage section digitalized. Some articles of concern are 6th South Carolina Regiment, 1st Maryland Regiment, etc. The question is - Is the link Spam?--Oldwildbill 22:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it because most of the site links to Ancestry.com pages, for which you have to pay after a while? I would still think the information is valuable, even if you have to pay to get it. I don't see how it's being used for advertising purposes on Wikipedia, though, which is usually the definition of spam, isn't it? --ScreaminEagle 22:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Thadius was told by an admin, Eagle 101, to remove it.--Oldwildbill 16:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Commando Hunt

There's a new request for A-Class status for Operation Commando Hunt that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Union Army Balloon Corps

There's a new peer review request for Union Army Balloon Corps that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 23:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

NEW MANEUVER CENTER REPLACING INFANTRY AND ARMOR CENTERS

Between now and 2008, the Armor Center is moving from Fort Knox to Fort Benning, and will be consolidated with the Infantry Center to form the new US Army Maneuver Center. The two schools will remain separate - but will share Fort Benning - and Fort Benning will gain new cantonment areas to replace those lost at Fort Knox. The Institute of heraldry is designing a new patch for the maneuver Center, which will be the new garrison for Fort Benning as well as the headquarters for the two schools. The Armor Museum is moving, but NOT the Patton Museum, which is privately owned. Source: November 13, 2006 Army Times. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 07:40, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

ADDITIONAL LINKS TO USACMH ONLINE PUBLICATIONS

I just added more resource links to US Army Center for Military History Publications added to their website. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired)

Peer review request for U.S. 8th Armored Division

There's a new peer review request for U.S. 8th Armored Division that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 23:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cambodian Civil War

There's a new request for A-Class status for Cambodian Civil War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Crawford expedition

There's a new peer review request for Crawford expedition that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 05:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Minnesota national guard units

Have proposed deletion of this near meaningless, cryptic list of units, but wanted to signpost it in case anybody is interested enough to save it. Cheers Buckshot06 07:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Strategic Air Command wings

This is a VERY long article, at over 200 kb. Unless anyone has a difficulty (maybe the writer), I'm going to reduce its size by moving the Strategic Wings (mostly the 1000+ numbered MAJCOM wings) to the Strategic Wings page, unless there are better suggestions. Thoughts welcome.. Buckshot06 23:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Just cut the Strat Wings out to their own page, but article is still over 200Kb. Appreciate suggestions on what to separate out to reduce it to a more manageable size. Buckshot06 04:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in the process (along with Buckshot06, I think) of separating out all the individual wings to their own page and adding a "see XXX" link under their titles. I believe this keeps the "spirit" of the list intact (documenting which wings were part of SAC), but also allows the individual wings to continue their history and lineage before and after they were part of the Strategic Air Command.
An additional "housekeeping" suggestion is make this article into a list. This would allow a direct link to the wings without having to scroll down the list to find the wing of interest, only to find that you have to go to yet another page. -Dan NDCompuGeek 21:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh

There's a new request for A-Class status for Battle of Khe Sanh that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 18:41, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for List of United States Marine Corps aircraft squadrons

There's a new peer review request for List of United States Marine Corps aircraft squadrons that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942)

There's a new peer review request for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942)

There's a new request for A-Class status for Invasion of Tulagi (May 1942) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 13:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cambodian Civil War

There's a new request for A-Class status for Cambodian Civil War that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 18:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

a comment re military acronyms

not sure this is the right place. but it's maybe a good idea to expand the dictionary of acronyms a bit. one tends to run into quite a bit of those on the biographies. for example, most readers would probably not know that S-3 is the staff officer responsible for operations. Mct mht 11:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for Joint Security Area

There's a new peer review request for Joint Security Area that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 23:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested articles

The requested articles departement gets reorganized. The requests get moved to the specific taskforce. In case of error move it to a concerning task force.

www.themilitant.com/2002/6620/662053.html)

  • Smart acquisition (Smart Acquisition is a long-term MOD initiative to improve the way we acquire defence capability. We no longer replace military equipment, services, ...

www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/Organisation/KeyFactsAboutDefence/SmartAcquisition.htm)

  • Kenneth Bowra (KENNETH RHODES BOWRA. MAJOR GENERAL. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH. 23 October 1948, Jamaica, New York. YEARS OF ACTIVE COMMISSIONED SERVICE ...

http://www.specialoperations.com/Focus/Official/Commanders/bowra.html)

  • Standing Consultative Commission set up by the Anti-Ballitsic Missile Treaty, or Strategic Arms Limitations (SALT) as a means to adjudicate disputes between the US and the USSR during the cold war
  • STRATUS IVY (STRATUS IVY became SOCOM ABLE DANGER Teams Forward Support center. As ABLE DANGER was based in Tampa and, at one point, Garland, TX, to minimize the amount ...

http://www.abledangerblog.com/2006/03/stratus-ivy-holdings-of-able-danger.html) U.S. (and French) abuse of German PoWs, 1945-1948

  • Maschke Commission, set up to determine the fate of German WWII POWs (The Maschke Commission would later tabulate 4537 parish-registered deaths in these 6 worst RWLs, 774 from the others. They thought the actual death toll ...

http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/for/us-germany-pow.html) US-allies: Khiem Thao possibly about this guy: The real mover behind it all, declared Thao, was General Tran Thien Khiem, South Viet Nam's ambassador in Washington. But the timing of the revolt evidently ... http://www.jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,833479,00.html) US colonial troops:

  • Philippine Scout Mutiny (The Philippine Scout Mutiny of 1924. Author: Meixsel R. Source: South East Asia Research, Volume 10, Number 3, 1 November 2002, pp. 333-359(27) ...

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ip/sear/2002/00000010/00000003/art00004)

Wandalstouring 10:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Added to open task template. Kirill Lokshin 14:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
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