Talk:First sergeant

I'm new to wiki communities so I don't know how to make the major changes needed to correct the inaccuracies on this page (adding and deleting pages). However I am in the military so I can tell you the correct information.

A First Sergeant is not actually a rank. It is a position held by either an NCO (noncommisioned officer) or SNCO (senior NCO). Each unit has one and only one 1st Sergeant (or 1st Shirt, or Shirt for short), who isn't necessarily the highest ranking enlisted in the unit. The Shirt is the go-between between the Commanding officer and the enlisted corps. The Shirt keeps the Commanding officer up to date with any issues going on with the enlisted, and keeps the enlisted up to date on any issues that affect them. The Shirt also oversees any in-house disciplinary actions with the enlisted corps.

While the diamond in the picture to the right does indicate 1st Sergeant, it isn't part of the rank (number of stripes), and since the Shirt can be any sergeant, you can have anywhere from 4 to 8 stripes with a diamond in the center.

In the chart below, there are no ranks that would directly correspond to CPO and SCPO/MCPO, but rather they would correspond with the rank categories NCO and SNCO. However, since the convention of the table below is to list more than one rank per cell, SGT should be replaced with Staff Sergeant (SSgt) and Tech Sergeant (TSgt), and 1st SGT should be replaced with Master Sergeant (MSgt), Senior Master Sergeant (SMSgt), and Chief Master Sergeant (CMSgt). -- unsigned


 * While I'm all for fixing the inaccuracies in this page, one thing we won't be doing is creating references for ranks not mentioned on Star Trek. A USMC first sergeant appeared in, that's why this page is here. No SSgt, TSgt SMSgt, CMSgt or MSgt has ever appeared, so we won't be creating articles about each of those. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 20:09, 18 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * Unless of course they appeared in Star Trek -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 00:05, 31 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * Staff sergeant has appeared but i'm wondering -- if no USAF first sergeants have appeared on Star Trek, then the following text might be irrelevant:
 * ''In the USAF a first sergeant is the senior enlisted man of a squadron and can hold the grade of master sergeant, senior master sergeant, or chief master Sergeant. A command chief master sergeant, which is roughly equivalent to a sergeant major and/or command sergeant major, is the senior enlisted man of a group or wing.
 * Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 01:31, 13 Jan 2006 (UTC)

In the Army, First Sergeant is most definitely a rank. It falls in the same grade as master sergeant, and they both get the same pay, but the First Sergeant is in a command position while the master sergeant is not. In the case of the Army, a First Sergeant is probably the chief advisor (not positive here, about "chief advisor") to the commanding officer of a company. First Sergeants don't appear anywhere else. (The battalion-level counterpart of a First Sergeant is a Command Sergeant Major; the counterpart of a master sergeant is Sergeant Major.) Schmidt 03:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)