Talk:Corporal

Master Corporal
In documentaries and news items about the Canadian armed forces the recruits always address their drill instructors thus, "Yes, Master Corporal!" So, what is a Master Corporal? Is it the same as other armed forces' Corporal?
 * It's a rank between corporal and sergeant, wearing a maple leaf above two chevrons. However, the Canadians no longer have lance-corporals, so I assume it fills a similar slot to corporal in the British Army and the Canadian corporal fills a similar slot to lance-corporal. In NATO terms it ranks as OR-5, the same as a sergeant with less than three years seniority. -- Necrothesp 13:13, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * To be picky, I believe it's an appointment rather than rank. &mdash; Franey 09:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You are correct; it is officially an appointment to the rank of Corporal. According to the rules when I was in, if a Sergeant got demoted 1 step in rank, he got bucked down to Corporal (the next substantive rank down); however, to get back to Sergeant, he'd have to get promoted to Master Corporal first, then jump through all the hoops again to get his third hook back. I think that reg may have changed, at it may have been seen as discriminatory. At any rate, overall it is a de jure appointment and a de facto rank. SigPig 20:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Calling someone Corporal
Outside of an organisation, to what extent can you call someone 'Corporal' (e.g Cpl J Brown instead of Mr J Brown)?
 * Well, in the UK it would never be done. All ranks lower than captain are addressed as "Mr" outside the service environment (and subalterns and warrant officers are addressed as "Mr" even within it). It is also, incidentally, considered bad form for retired service personnel to continue to use their rank if it was lower than major (or equivalent). I don't know about the rules elsewhere. -- Necrothesp 19:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Corporals and commands
Corporal is the first rank in the NCO cadre, the first rank empowered to issue an order, and I can tell you they routinely exercise that power, albeit only over privates. How else, f'r'instance, is a radio detachment commander going to command his detachment? SigPig 20:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

See my comment under "Corporals and commands" above. Canadian corporals are not private soldiers. They are de jure Junior Non-Commissioned Officers, and empowered to issue lawful commands; de facto they may often be treated as glorified privates, but I can tell you that they are detachment commanders and shift supervisors (as well as 2ICs), lead patrols, and have been tasked as instructors at the national level. SigPig 21:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

"[In Canada] corporal is the first non-commissioned officer rank, and the lowest rank officially empowered to issue a lawful command. Corporals can lead troops if they have the formal qualifications to be promoted to Master Corporal but have not been promoted yet. However, the rank of Corporal was severaly downgraded after Unification, along with the attendant responsibilities. A Corporal in the Canadian Army in 1967 had the same duties and responsibilities that a Sergeant has today."

To support SigPig, I disagree with that quote from the article. On training with reserve regiments, I've almost never seen a sergent working as a section commander. A lot of the time we have them there, but only on paper. Sometimes we feel lucky if we get a sergent to act as platoon warrant. The section commanders and 2ic's are usually, mostly corporals, and I've seen privates do it too. The way things should work and the way they do work don't always match, but they do match better on courses, regular force training, and operations...--Sukisuki 15:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Germany section

 * I'm not very common to German military, but there definitly does not exist any rank called "Oberstabsgefreiter". That should be changed. --M9IN0G 18:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There is, it was introduced 7. Februar 1996! 88.77.208.38 (talk) 10:00, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

US Table at Top?
I think there should be a table at the top of other US ranks, and not just those of the British military. Or abolished completely. There is a tremendous number of Americans on this site (including myself) and the whole page is about international ranks, anyways. Does anyone else agree?Zoke (talk) 00:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The table was originally meant to show the enlgish language variant of ranks held internationally, such as Captain Colonel and Admiral but over time prople have wanted to put ranks inbetween which is not consistent with every country. The Air Force one was inevitably going to be bias to UK/Coommonwealth forces as the US and many other nations simply use Army Ranks. Dainamo (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Denmark
Oh dear..... "Corporals are sergeants"? NCOs perhaps? And the rank is being both phased out and reintroduced? I think this section needs to be looked at by someone with a clear grasp of the situation in the Danish forces. Pete Fenelon (talk) 17:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Marine Corps Corporal Section Jargon
The section that attempts to illustrate the steps taken for a corporal to be advanced to sergeant has abreviations in it that I'm not sure of. I've served with Marines all throughout my service career and can guess at most of them, but I'm sure that most readers of the article would not be familiar with the military jargon. Is an explaination of how one is advanced to sergeant even necessary in the article about corporals? Perhaps that information should go to an article on Marine Corps advancement procedure or be added to the Marine Corps article itself. Cuprum17 (talk) 23:58, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Corporals in popular culture
Can anyone give me a good reason not to nuke this section? Wardog (talk) 23:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Napoleon Bonaparte and Benito Mussolini were corporals at one time. The first was nicknamed "The Little Corporal". Although Adolf Hitler has often been referred to as a "corporal" in English, his :actual rank, Gefreiter, was more equivalent to senior private; he was never a corporal (Unteroffizier).
 * A Corporalship or Corporal's guard is a name for a small band of followers based on the small amount of soldiers directly led by a corporal.
 * In the movie Aliens, after the death of Sargeant Apone and a concussion suffered by Lieutenant Goreman, Corporal Hicks takes command, where he is referred to as a "grunt".
 * In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, there is a small, unpleasant Corporal named Nobby Nobbs. A running joke in the books is that he is so small and unpleasant that it is disputed whether or not he is human.

Demotion to Corporal from Sergeant
Well, greetings fellow old-timer (Foofbun)! I haven't heard (or seen) anyone use the expression "hard 5 (five)" to refer to a "buck" sergeant (E-5) in many decades, and since all Specialist Fives (SP5) were converted to Sergeant (SGT) circa 1978, I'm sure that most readers today won't know what that means. Anyway, since demotions are thankfully rare, and most certainly a negative action, not normally associated with a soldier's progression (or lack thereof) in his (I know there are female soldiers, and they're no longer called WACs, but the overwhelming majority of soldiers are still armed below the belt and carry a basic load of two rounds) career, I believe this addition is unnecessary. Besides, it would only occur through Article 15 or Courts Martial proceedings, anyway. I recommend this edit be reverted.CobraDragoon (talk) 22:08, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Corporal. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110607004709/http://forsvaret.dk/HOK/Nyt%20og%20Presse/%C3%98vrige%20nyheder/Pages/Uddannelsetilkorporal.aspx to http://forsvaret.dk/HOK/Nyt%20og%20Presse/%C3%98vrige%20nyheder/Pages/Uddannelsetilkorporal.aspx

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:18, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

"Corporal(rank)" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Corporal(rank)&redirect=no Corporal(rank)] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 05:26, 24 May 2023 (UTC)