Talk:Troy H. Middleton

Family

I'm beginning the process of expanding this article and have done this with some family background and references. It would be great if others would like to expand his military career. If not, I'll eventually get to it.Sarnold17 (talk) 22:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Photos

Does anyone have any other photos of Middleton? The current photo in the article makes him look like an alien of sorts. I like using this photo in the article, because it was taken during the Battle of the Bulge, but his infobox could use something a little more flattering.Sarnold17 (talk) 22:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

File:Eisenhower.Dwight.preWWII.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Troy H. Middleton/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Thurgate (talk · contribs) 17:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   prose: (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments

Lead

•  Done Lead needs to be bigger as in its current state it is not big enough to summarize such a large article.

• • Lead expanded to nearly double its former length

•  Done His brilliant leadership. Who says it was brilliant?

• • statement removed

Family and early life

• Suggest you reorder the Ancestry section as it jumps from the 20th century to the 17th century.

** I would much prefer to leave this section the way it is. When discussing family backgrounds, most articles begin with the subject, then mention parents, and then possibly grandparents and prominent relatives. I've just extended this line of thinking back a few more generations to show the family's connection with the nation as a whole, and to highlight some of the military service of Middleton's forebears. If this were a genealogical account about the Middleton family, then it would begin with the earliest known ancestor and move forward chronologically. The focus here, however, is Troy Middleton, so I feel it is appropriate to begin with him, and work back to his earliest known ancestor.

•  Done Troy Middleton was the middle of nine children. Suggest - do you sources say which number he was eg. 4/5/6?

** reworded as fifth of nine children

•  Done preppie year. Suggest - you reword preppie as it doesnt sound brilliant

** preppie ---> preparatory

Early service in the U.S. Army

•  Done years Middleton would play a lot of football, which sport was strongly endorsed by the Army. Suggest - years Middleton played a lot of football, a sport which was strongly endorsed by the Army.

•  Done thought surely that. Suggest - thought that

World War One

• 7th Regiment had served a. Suggest - 7th Regiment had served in a

• • I'm not able to find this reference. Go ahead and make the change when you find it.

•  Done This huge logistical undertaking was an experience that would serve Middleton well at another time in another war. Suggest - you remove this sentence as it is not needed.

•  Done last major engagement in this war for Middleton. Suggest - last major engagement of the First World War for Middleton.

•  Done before expressly to. Suggest - before to

•  Done bridge in a different war. Suggest - bridge in the Second World War

•  Done mid-summer. Suggest - mid-summer 1919

Military Schools

•  Done point he fired many rounds from a new. Suggest - point he fired from a new

• • he tested a new...

•  Done about the most. Suggest - was one of the most

• There was also a point in time during World War II. Suggest - do you sources say which point during World War II?

• • No, the source only says that it happened, but not when it happened

•  Done Having been involved in military education for the past nine years, Major Middleton's next assignment would make it an even ten. Suggest - you remove this sentence as it does not add anything of value to the paragraph

Late career

•  Done Having spent the previous ten years in the various Army schools, it was time for Major Middleton to have another assignment with the troops if he wanted to keep his career viable for advancement. His request to return. Suggest - Having spent the previous ten years in various Army schools, Major Middleton requested a return to Camp Benning

•  Done they were greeted by a sunburnt couple. Suggest - they were greeted by

•  Done Eisenhower had spent three years in Panama as an aide to a very wise general, Fox Conner from Mississippi. Connor knew that the Treaty of Versailles ensured there would be another war, and that the terms of the treaty were already being ignored by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Eisenhower reasoned that this was no time for an officer with combat experience to be getting out of the Army. Suggest - you reword this completely as it is not very encyclopedic

** Sentences have been reworded

•  Done While in Japan and China Middleton could see that events were unfolding that would ultimately lead to war in this part of the world. Suggest - you remove this sentence

World War II

•  Done Though Middleton was not told a thing about it. Suggest - Though Middleton was not informed of this

•  Done that he really needed Middleton back. Suggest - that he needed Middleton back

• except that for an aide he would like his old LSU friend, Mack Hornbeak. Suggest - Do you mean the Sergeant who massaged him or Hornbeak?

• • These sentences make sense to me. He had his sergeant therapist--end of thought. Next thought--he's selecting a staff for his new corps, and decides to keep the original staff that is already in place, with one exception -- for his aide he wants his old LSU friend Hornbeak who had been with him in Sicily and Salerno. I'm not sure what to change, if anything

•  Done concerned about Patton's big mouth. Suggest - concerned about Patton's ego

• • reworded as "Patton's propensity to embarrass the Army when talking to the press."

•  Done Nevertheless, Patton. Suggest - Following this Patton

•  Done corps was pulled out of Third Army. Suggest - corps was pulled out of the Third Army

•  Done him he had better remove some of the bogus red crosses. Suggest - him to remove some of the bogus red crosses

•  Done Middleton never did learn of Bradley's reaction to Patton's method of "staying in place. Suggest - you remove this sentence

•  Done eliciting another reaction from Patton. Suggest - was this reaction good or bad?

• • eliciting another laugh from Patton

•  Done He also sent a personal note to Middleton, shown here. Suggest - you remove this sentence

Return to LSU

•  Done the legislature had given. Suggest - Which legislature, the state legislature or congress?

•  Done For Middleton, 1958 was his best year as president of the university. This is the year that his long-desired library opened on campus, and also the year that Louisiana State University at New Orleans began its first session.[175] In addition, this is the year the LSU football team had an undefeated season and won the national championship. Suggest - You look over this paragraph as it is not needed for this section, whether reword it or remove it

• • Paragraph removed

•  Done The commission disapproved of a number of pet political projects that were poor uses of the state's money. Suggest - Where they the governers pet projects?

• • reworded for better meaning

Overall good job with the article, you are a bit reliant on Price for information but that can sometimes not be helped.

Price is the one definitive source on Middleton. Almost every website refers to Price, who was the head of the journalism dept. at LSU, and who met with Middleton every week for three years to capture his story. I've tried to use something from every source I have available (Eisenhower, Patton and few others) but there really isn't a lot compared to the complete story that Price has assembled. Without Price, the article would only be a handful of paragraphs long, and would have to consist largely of primary source documents.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow you to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns. Thurgate (talk) 17:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm happy with all of the changes/suggestion you have made so its good to go for GA in my eyes. Also nice job with the lead it looks very nice. Passed. Good job Sarn. Thurgate (talk) 21:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Dates...

I've reverted because while WP:STRONGNAT does point to month/day for US subjects, it also notes that "Sometimes the customary format differs from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern US military use day before month, in accordance with military usage." This seems a fairly strong case for this to apply, given the subject is a bio of a modern US military officer. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:07, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes yes. Yet a part of the guideline not practiced on biographies. Unless you can cite one, which of course there has to be at least one other not following WP:STRONGNAT.--JOJ ^Hutton 15:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'd certainly agree it's not 100% clear cut, although which ever way around, it should certainly be consistent throughout the article. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

(NB: I came here from the discussion here, it might be worth your making the same point there as well). Hchc2009 (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I made a comment there. And as far as I can tell, this is an biography and biographies usually do not use the military date format. In fact I would argue that no military article should use the military date format. These articles are written for the general reader and as such should be written in the tone that only people in the military can understand. And to answer Sarnold's comment that I only changed a few dates on that article and left the rest alone. I didn't see those until after I made the edit and had planned on making those changes at a near later time, like within the next few hours, but now we are discussing, so I won't make any changes until later, or in which time those changes are made by another. I'm sure SArnold has only the best interests in mind, so I'm not questioning his good faith, but he does have a history of using DMY dates in other articles on People with Strong national ties to the US as well. It's his preferred method, but we should really follow the guideline. FYI, I will keep my communications on this thread from now on, so as to attempt to keep the entire conversation in one place.--JOJ ^Hutton 15:50, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks JOJ. I'll follow suit. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:54, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello again; what I quoted came from here, and I copied and pasted the quote, so I don't think any of the words fell off or were altered in the process:

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Choice of format

I will also keep the remainder of the discussion here.Sarnold17 (talk) 16:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. That was a Good Faith Cut and Paste and I will strike the portion about it on the other page.--JOJ ^Hutton 16:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

General practice on modern US military articles is that dates should be DMY. Whether this is a good or bad practice should not be debated on individual articles. If you want to change this practice, have the discussion on the MoS page. Parsecboy (talk) 16:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Is there evidence, other than this article, that that biographies do this as well? This is a biography about a person who served in the military, not an article about the US military. If we went around and changed every articles dates, for every person who served in the military, we would quite a few articles using this date format, which would be wrong.--JOJ ^Hutton 16:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

See for instance Douglas MacArthur, Thomas C. Kinkaid, and Kenneth Walker, all American military officers and all Featured Articles. This is widely established practice (I'm speaking as a long-term participant in and former lead coordinator of the MILHIST project). Parsecboy (talk) 17:29, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Like I said before, I'm sure there would be a few instances of using the incorrect date format. These are biographies about the persons life, and not military articles. Not the same thing.--JOJ ^Hutton 17:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

And I am telling you that this is widespread practice. These articles were thoroughly vetted through MILHIST ACR and FAC reviews; if the date system was wrong, someone would have commented on it. They did not, and these are not the only examples. Parsecboy (talk) 17:44, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

(EC) We can all play the, lets look at the links game too: George S. Patton, Omar Bradley, William Westmoreland, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John J. Pershing, Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., Tommy Franks, David Petraeus, Raymond T. Odierno, Colin Powell, George Marshall, Mark W. Clark, Jacob L. Devers, Carl Andrew Spaatz, Holland Smith, William D. Leahy, William Halsey, Jr., Raymond A. Spruance, Curtis LeMay, Henry H. Arnold, Matthew Ridgway, Mark W. Clark, Creighton Abrams, and these are not the only examples. Not your "featured articles", but these articles are not written for perfectionists, they are written for the general reader. And if we want to get technical on the dates, military dates are written like this: 12 OCT 89.

And under the military date logic, quite a few other "featured articles" would also be written with military dates as well. John Mccain comes to mind.

Anyway, seems like I may have to work from the inside to get this fixed because there is an obvious problem with how this process has been flowing.--JOJ ^Hutton 18:27, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought we were trying to do our best work here. I guess I'm just a "perfectionist". John McCain is not notable for being a military officer, he's notable for being a politician, hence why his article uses MDY. Articles on modern American military topics (whether biographies or not) should use DMY. This is widespread, longstanding practice. Again, if you think this is a problem, you need to do it at the MoS, not at individual articles. Parsecboy (talk) 18:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, best work. We can agree on that. I'll tell you a few things that I think we can agree on, and have in common, so that you will know that I am not your enemy, but just another editor interpreting guidelines the best I can. We both served in the military, we both think that its THE Ohio State University, we both use an iPhone, and we both like history. (Yes I looked at your user page). I now realize however, that I am going to have to invoke change from within. You mentioned earlier that those articles achieved FA without anyone commenting on the dates. I will make sure that I at least bring that issue up, the next time a biography of a US military person gets nominated. I also believe that these articles are not for the military reader, but are meant for the general reader. We shouldn't get too technical with some of the jargon and in this case the dates. We should use the common date format in the country represented. In the case of the United States thats "MDY". The military has its own reasons for using that date format, which as I mentioned before, has been modified on these articles. Therese no logical need to use that same date format here on Wikipedia.--JOJ ^Hutton 19:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Let me provide a little more insight on this particular article. JOJ has noted that most of my articles use dmy, which is correct, and I'm willing to debate this issue as I am preparing to do in another forum at Talk:Anne Hutchinson. Since I am the primary contributor to this article, my rationale for using dmy, besides finding it to be approved according to the MOS, was who I thought the intended readers would be. Articles on Eisenhower and Patton are going to get a lot of general readership. Middleton, on the other hand, is a lesser known general, and my thinking when I wrote the material, rightly or wrongly, was that a bulk of the readers of this article would be military people like myself. As I wrote the various sections, I envisioned them being read by student officers at the Command and General Staff School, or maybe even the Army War College. Again, I may be way out in left field, but to my thinking dmy is not only approved by the MOS, but it would be something very suitable and fitting to the perceived readership. So what about the other articles; should they be changed? Heck no. Leave them be. Let a consensus emerge as they move along. And if all else fails, remember to ignore all rules.Sarnold17 (talk) 17:51, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

This really boils down to a WP:ENGVAR issue. The style adopted by the first editor (or possibly major contributor, if different) should be respected and changes should not be made from one date format to another without prior discussion and the gaining of consensus. Mjroots (talk) 22:41, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

ENGVAR is about spelling variations, not dates. Although modern military uses a form of the "DMY" format (actually would be 19 AUG 12, not 19 August 2012), there is no logical reason to use that format as the articles are meant for the general reader and not military specialists.--JOJ ^Hutton 12:17, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggesting a compromise: Joj, if you don't plan to wander through articles changing date formats, if you're only interested in the date format in this particular article, then maybe we could just ask Sarnold if they'd be willing to change the date format on this article? We've had plenty of American military bios go through Milhist's A-class with either date format, and generally, we leave the preference of the primary editor(s) intact. - Dank (push to talk) 20:19, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Thats sounds like a reasonable compromise, but I have to decline on my part, despite the fact that I have no plans to change the dates on "military articles", anytime in the near future. I don't think that I want to officially bind my hands on this and besides I intend to begin invoking change across the entire scope of these articles from within, as there is no clear and encyclopedic need for this date format at all. Even other paper and online encyclopedias don't use the "military date" such as the British Encyclopedia Britannica . Why is Wikipedia?--JOJ ^Hutton 23:59, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Off topic? or over weight?

This is a very informative and interesting article, someone has obviously put a lot of effort into it. However, the article seems to stray from the subject of Troy Middleton the man to history of the events that surrounded him to a much greater extent than necessary, or desirable, for an encyclopedia article. In some of the later sections, World War II in particular, the man seems to disappear for a paragraph at a time, or at least stray into someone else's biography for a sentence or two. I would recommend a pretty thorough rewrite with the mind to remove as much of the material that isn't directly relevant to Middleton himself as possible. Atani (talk) 04:47, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, there's a nice quote from Hugh M. Cole's 'The Ardennes: The Battle of the Bulge', 50th Anniversary Edition, p.55 that someone might want to use as an intro quote: "General Middleton himself had a fine combat record reaching from World War I through Sicily, Normandy, and Brittany. Deliberate and calm but tenacious, he was regarded by Bradley and Patton as one of the best tacticians in the US Army."Atani (talk) 14:22, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

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Renaming of Library???

Just curious why this article has not been edited to reflect that the lsu BOS has voted unanimously to strip Middleton's name from the library? Should this not be added to this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.63.166.66 (talk) 17:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

WOW! WHAT DETAIL!

This article is ridiculous. I don't think we've had articles this detailed for US presidents, let alone segregationist LSU presidents... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmkstrat (talk • contribs) 01:14, 2 December 2021 (UTC)