Talk:Troop

Expand the article
This article is still a stub. Are there any plans to include the meanings from other countries, and a historical background? -- Allyunion 23:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I've put in US usage (certainly open to correction), but historical background would still be nice. --Dhartung 17:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Needs to adhere to WP:WORLDVIEW
Needs more non-U.S. material. Check out this article at Grammar Girl's website since she has references that could be used. --Airborne84 (talk) 08:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Meaning of "troop" to refer to a single soldier
I don't recall hearing the term "troop" used to refer to a soldier till about 30 years ago, probably during Dessert Storm. During Vietnam, I recall soldiers still refered to as GI's. This article doesn't seem to indicate "troop" as an individual soldier. Flight Risk (talk) 18:14, 1 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Glad Wikipedia is sticking to the traditional meaning of the word. When I hear on CBS news that 3 troops died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, I cringe. I studied journalism and my professors would have harshly graded any article we wrote mis-using the word troop in that manner. If someone I knew died in the US military, I would not want my loved one to be referred to as a troop. It is awful-sounding, impersonal, awkward, confusing and does not represent what the person did for the military in any clear way. Yet nearly all the major TV networks are flagrantly misnaming honorable US service people, and misusing the word troop, including ABC News, NBC News and CBS News. When our young people die overseas for the US, they become known as a troop. My son is a troop serving in Afghanistan. Yikes what is this world coming to??? --Rickster77 (talk) 19:35, 4 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I hadn't yet encountered the use of "a troop" to mean one individual soldier – only plural usage, so that some number of troops means that number of soldiers – but the Grammar Girl article (linked in the above topic) gives examples of such usage. It also gives an excellent overview of the history and usage of "troops" as a noncollective noun, usage advice, and references.
 * The benefits of the non-collective use of troops mentioned by that article – that it's service-neutral and gender-neutral – seems to be the same for the word troopers (mentioned by a commenter to the article), I think. But maybe that word has different connotations? --83.255.55.91 (talk) 09:16, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

British artillery usage
The lead refers to use in the Royal Horse Artillery to mean a battery (does it mean equivalent of a battery?) but this information is not included in the section on the British army lower down. In the Royal Artillery in WW2 a troop was a subunit of a battery, two or three to a battery and usually four guns; don't know if that is still the case. "Troop" now seems to be used as an historical honorific for a battery, eg N Battery (The Eagle Troop) Royal Horse Artillery Cyclopaedic (talk) 10:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Turkish Armored Troops
Hey, one question. This article does not mention the size of a Turkish troop. Could you guys please help me with figuring out if the Turks use squadrons and what the size is? Faithful15 (talk) 16:44, 14 December 2022 (UTC)