Talk:Sergeant

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• Unfortunately, the latest insignia layout change doesn't render in Mozilla/Firefox as Bryan intended. It did well in IE. Opera resulted in little change from the original layout. A compromise is going to be needed. I prefer using wikified tags myself, but don't want to cause an edit war. Input anyone? - Wguynes 06:54, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)
  • Just as an addendum. I do think I know what it is about my original layout that caused Bryan to want to change it. The two floating tables were most likely stacking horizontally because there wasn't enough text between them. This can be prevented with a "clear:both" property. Barring objections, I'll implement that in a few days. - Wguynes 17:20, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)
    • There. The clear:both; property is just the ticket. - Wguynes 05:41, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)
• Should there be some information about the origin, and historical function, of the sergeant in this article? Or should that be on a seperate page (perhaps one dealing with feudal military service?).--Trithemius 16:34, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

I have altered the layout of the page so that it doesnt have such a plain US bias. Frankly, to put United States at the top of a comparative list when alphabetically it almost always should come at the bottom is ridiculous.

As an uninformed person I looked up this article to help distinguish between the roles of Staff Sergeant and Sergeant. If anyone has information about this, can they expand to include an answer? Thanks. lots of issues | leave me a message 03:02, 19 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

Contradiction: this article says "Sergeant is the fifth enlisted rank in the U.S. Army", but the Corporal article says "In the U.S. Army a Corporal (CPL) is the fifth enlisted rank, the first three being forms of Private and the fourth being the Specialist".

Does anyone know why a sergeant is called a "sergeant". I guess this might be a interesting addition to the article, IF there is a explanation. --Dwightman 17:39, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be a medieval French corruption of the latin word servient, meaning "subordinate". Bastie 21:00, 19 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Howcome it's pronounced so funny?

Because it's French and isn't "pronounced funny" to them! -- Necrothesp 13:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

wouldnt that make 'sergeant and 'samurai' basically the same thing? also, i was taught in airman leadership school that 'sergeant' means 'to serve'. -Lordraydens 10:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

From American Heritage Dictionary:

sergeant Middle English sergeaunte, a common soldier, from Old French sergent, from Medieval Latin servins, servient-, servant, soldier, from Late Latin, public official, from Latin, present participle of servre, to serve, from servus, slave.[1]

samurai Japanese, warrior, from Old Japanese samurafi : sa-, pref. of unknown meaning + morafi, to watch, frequentative of mor-, to guard. [2]

So the answer to your question would appear to be "No". At least as far as the dictionary is concerned. Besides, try calling a samurai "slave" and see what he does with that little pigsticker of his. --SigPig 05:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

actually, there is a mistake on this page, it's "sergent" in French, and not "Sergeant". Litterally, it does means to serve people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.224.166.172 (talk • contribs) 08:23, 29 December 2006

i added specialist and corporal to the ranks below sergeant. if somebody wants to make that look prettier, by all means go ahead. i wasnt sure if just to put in corporal since its a nco position and specialist isnt. -Lordraydens 08:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Should we add information about the verbal address of the various ranks of sergeant in the US Army, similar to that provided for the USMC? Unlike what is listed there, "Sergeant Jones" in the US Army can refer to the ranks of Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, and Master Sergeant.Hcbowman 16:11, 28 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's an eagle, not an albatross. From AP 1358, CHAP 7, Art 0711. Rank Badges Description:

b. Master Aircrew. A gilded metal eagle within embroidered laurel leaves surmounted by the Royal Arms. Provided in left and right arm badges, eagle is always to point to the rear.
...

d. Flight Sergeant Aircrew. An eagle and 3-bar chevron surmounted by a crown. Tips of the aircrew eagles wings are to be horizontally in line 1/8" (3mm) below the upper points of the chevrons, the crown is to be centred ¼" (6mm) above the eagle. In all cases the eagle is to face to the rear. The metal eagle and crown are only to be worn on the No 1 SD Jacket…
...

g. Sergeant Aircrew. A 3-bar chevron surmounted by an eagle. Tips of the aircrew eagles wings are to be horizontally in line 1/8" (3mm) below the upper points of the chevrons. In all cases the eagle is to face to the rear… –RAF Dress Regulations

--SigPig |^{SEND - OVER} 05:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

"In today's Air Force, the term Sergeant refers to all Air Force NCOs up to and including Chief Master Sergeant."

Try calling a Chief "Sergeant" and see what happens. Not even butterbars make that mistake. Khakain 03:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

The article states that in a typical German company one platoon is commanded by an officer and the others by an NCO of the rank of Hauptfeldwebel. While this is true for some units this does not reflect the organization of companies in general. Platoons are usually commanded by officers in Germany as well. NCOs commanding platoons are mostly found in infantry and panzer infantry units, but even in these, there are companies whose platoons are all commanded by 2nd and 1st lieutenants. It is often a question of what training is required for the commanding position of a particular platoon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.226.86.72 (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC) Just came here to say the same basically. Having served in the mechanized infantry, I've never experienced a platoon led by a NCO and I'm sure I would know if it was typical. Maybe in times with a shortage of junior officers, but again, its far from typical. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.200.51.204 (talk) 00:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

I was recently reading through the story of John Kenneally VC in his book "The Honour and the Shame" and on page 123 he talks about getting his three stripes and says the following:

"The new CSM, Gilmore (a nice guy later killed in Anzio), called me into the office and said they were going to promote me to Lieutenant Sergeant. I said I did not want to be a Sergeant and was quite happy as I was."

Until reading this I had not heard of the rank Lieutenant Sergeant and I was wondering what its history was and if the rank still exists. I checked on wikipedia, but to no avail. Can anyone enlighten me? and should this article make mention of the rank?Kwib (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

It appears to be a rank used at leat by the Philippines military and maybe some police depts. ~[3], [4] JJL (talk)

In the British Army a Sergeant is the the second in command of a platoon, are they also the second in command of troops in the Royal Armoured Corps? User 070 (talk) 16:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Recent copyediting may have disrupted incoming links to some sections - does anyone know if there's a bot or other tool that can help clean this up, or is it just going to be a slow manual job? --McGeddon (talk) 09:44, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I saw you reverted my edit. If you do not let other people keep the links working, please do not hesitate to fix all the links to Sergeant in another article yourself. But no, that would be harder than reverting someones edit who is trying to fix it! Oh well. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 17:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

I realise that what you did McGeddon was in good faith, and with the best of intentions. But like you said, a lot of links have gone "out of bonk" because of the section heading changes. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 17:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)Reply

How about a historic section? Roman usage/origin? Main tasks in the roman legion? Sergantus? Meaning? Etymology?Nunamiut (talk) 21:50, 23 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

I found this line under Singapore:

In the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), there are five different grades of sergeant along with apple pie

I don't know how to find the person and I'm also not sure what was there originally

It would be great if someone were to get to the bottom of this Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.10.149 (talk) 02:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Next time someone edits it would be appropriate to change the heading in Australia from "Defence ForceS" to "Defence Force". Strictly, the Army, Navy & Air Force are all branches of the same organization. Not conversant enough with Wikipaedia protocol to do this myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.249.47 (talk) 07:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

 Done.--Joshua Issac (talk) 17:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

I notice while looking in the United States military branches talks about the branches we have but we are missing the US Navy. It may not have a title as Sergeant but it is non-commissioned officer and maybe have a link from this page to be directed to the Petty officer first class page to ready more about it.Drchaos8605 (talk) 05:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

This page is about the rank of Sergeant. The rank of Sergeant does not exist in the US Navy. That is why it is missing from this page. A redirect is unnecessary -- the link already exists in the infobox. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 06:39, 13 October 2024 (UTC)Reply