Talk:119th Field Artillery Regiment

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Where are the appropriate and relevant references? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.81.160.77 (talk) 12:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Citations?

Where is a citation that states that this Regiment is part of the 197th Fires Brigade, aside from the very dubious Wikipedia page for that New Hampshire National Guard unit?

Deletion with Explanations

After extensive research that I completed over the past nine days, it became clear that several of the uncited claims in the article as it stood prior to my first edit on 28 December 2019 were most likely false or unverifiable. The article as it stood on 28 December 2019 had listed 4 sources but had only actually used three of them as one was just the "U.S Army Center of Military History: Style" which has zero pertinent information in regards to the 119th Field Artillery Regiment. During my nine days of research, I expanded and compiled a detailed history of the 119th Field Artillery Regiment adding 35 additional sources. During this time I made sure to leave all the dubious statements as is in case I found evidence of their existence in the future. Now that the history is complete through 2003, it is appropriate to delete the false information to improve the article. Here are the reasons for each deletion.

If anyone can show reliable and credible sources for any of the statements below then placing them back in the article with relevant citations would be appropriate.

1. Also the 119th saw action in both World War I and World War II in hand-to-hand combat, winning them a distinguished honor of being called "The finest infantry unit in the artillery".
   First off stating "infantry unit in the artillery" is backward as artillery units are attached to an infantry division not the other way around. There was zero evidence in an of the 39 sources claiming the 119th Field Artillery Regiment was "the finest". Secondly, artillery units do not engage in hand-to-hand combat. The 119th field artillery specialized in indirect fire and would not have faced the German or any other enemy face to face.
2. During its tour in Europe the 119th reportedly distinguished itself for having fired more rounds in combat than any other Allied artillery unit in either the European or Pacific Theaters.
   Same as above. Such a distinction as firing more round in combat than any other unit would have been mentioned in the history books if were true. Also to use a baseball analogy, firing more rounds is equivalent to an at-bat in baseball. In both cases, baseball and the military it is "hits" that matter not the number of rounds you fire.
3. During the Vietnam War, one team of forward observers went to Vietnam, serving with a Long Range Recon Patrol in the Mekong River area.
   This one is false. The Michigan Department of Military & Veteran Affairs lists every engagement that any Michigan National Guard unit participated in. There is no mention on any of their pages of any of their units being deployed to Vietnam. The website also states "Vietnam marked the first major conflict in which U.S. armed forces were involved without including any significant call-up of the National Guard." making it highly unlikely that Michigan National Guard units deployed to Vietnam and were left off the webpage. Although there are service members who are from Michigan who served and died in Vietnam they were not members of the Michigan National Guard. Also the book "Army Lineage Series: Field ARtilery does not list the Vietnam War as a campaign the 119th Field Artillery Regiment was involved in.
4. In the United States, the 119th helped to respond to numerous natural disasters including the blizzards of 1968 and 1979, and also to many civil emergencies such as riots and disturbances.
   The Michigan Department of Military & Veteran Affairs (DMVA) makes no mention of a 1968 or 1979 blizzard. There was a blizzard in 1967 and one in 1978 though. The DMVA website does state the following
   "Statewide flooding, snowstorms, and forest fires in the 1970s and 1980s necessitated many Michigan National Guard state mobilizations. Some of the more memorable events were the flooding of the Grand, Flint, and Red Cedar rivers in April 1975. Four-hundred Guard members were on state actual duty from April 19-24."
   "The Seney Forest Fire in the Upper Peninsula in the summer of 1976 required 450 Guard members from the 107th Engineer Battalion to be placed on duty from August 25 through October 15."
   "In the winter of 1977, a gigantic snowstorm paralyzed southern Michigan. One-hundred Guard members were ordered out and served from January 28 to February 7, 1976. Those who served were awarded the Humanitarian Services Medal for their actions."
   "On May 14, 1980, a tornado destroyed large portions of Kalamazoo. The Michigan National Guard responded with 150 members and equipment from the 156th Signal Battalion and the 207th Engineer Battalion. Aviation support was also provided. The Guard members worked from May 15-23 to restore essential services to Kalamazoo residents."
   None of these statements make mention of any particular units and therefore impossible to credit to the 119th Field Artillery Regiment.The "riots" mentioned in this sentence are already included on the page.
5. The 119th had been described once by General John "Black Jack" Pershing as being "The legion of hell itself ... disheveled and uncut, a rowdy and miscreant lot, who fight like demonic lions and drink like gods, but in all, no better men than to have with you in combat!"
   After searching the internet to find evidence of this quote only two "sources" were found. One was on a military forum which can be read here [1] and the other is the facebook page of the 119th Field Artillery Regiment. An internet search of famous quotes by General Pershing does not uncover this quote. The quote on Wikipedia predates the military forum and therefore the forum can not be the source of the quote. The posting on the military forum was on January 9, 2008, and it had already appeared on the Wikipedia page as of "Revision as of 21:41, 26 November 2007" already has this quote included. If anyone in the 119th Field Artillery Battalion has a better source for this quote of a picture of the quote on the wall as stated in the military forum then please share it. The picture would have to clearly show the quote and that the wall in a building of the 119th Field Artillery Regiment.
6. The reputation for unorthodox behavior, technical expertise, and astounding courage is echoed in the annals of military history, a proud heritage for the unit, who in 1996, took the name "Red Lions" from Pershing's comments
   This comment relies on the verifiability of the Pershing Quote
7. Those units set new records for seizures of contraband and arrests of wanted criminals and terror suspects. In six months on the Ambassador Bridge, they seized in excess of 20 million dollars (US) in illegal narcotics and contraband, stopped a child slavery ring, arrested 46 fugitives, including three wanted by Interpol, and more. Soldiers also worked in numerous airports, facilities, and elsewhere during the crisis, ensuring the people of Michigan could sleep soundly at night.
   After completing thorough research on the post 9/11 timeline there are no sources that claim the 119th Field Artillery was directly involved in any of the above. All the sources stated they helped secure the bridge and nothing more. The statistics mentioned in the above statement are most likely attributable to the combined efforts and multiple border crossings some of which the 119th Field Brigade was uninvolved in protecting. Furthermore, there is no timeline or dates in the above statement and research has uncovered no evidence to those claims. In that regard, it is being deleted until suck time as reliable sources are brought forward. (#7 was deleted on 6 January 2020)
8. In 2004, 150 soldiers deployed for service at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, where they set a series of distinguishing records. In the Battle of Abu Ghraib they repelled the largest attack on a U.S. military base or installation since the Vietnam War, together with the U.S. Marine Corps and other military personnel stationed at the base, on the night of 2005-04-02 and the following morning. They processed and provided security, custody, and control for over 20,000 detainees in one year, a record never before matched by any Allied facility of its type.
   The events that occurred on 2 April 2005 involved the United States Marines for sure. The other units that would have been in support are not cited in any references. The only place the 119th Field Artillery is mentioned in reference to the Battle of Abu Ghraib is on the Wikipedia page Battle of Abu Ghraib (and the Guttenberg library which credits its source as the Wikipedia page about the battle. With more and more people trusting Wikipedia as a reliable source, it is important to make sure everything on the page is 100% factual and verifiable.) That Battle of Abu Ghraib page lists 10 references all of which make zero mention of the 119th Field Artillery Battalion. It is a fact that the 119th Field Artillery did serve in Iraq but only that they were there. A section on that will be added to the article shortly as soon as I can find dates of embarkation and debarkation if they exist. Until such time as solid references come forward in regards to the Abu Ghraib incident then it will remain removed.

Boston1775 (talk) 13:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC) Further research will be done to verify the statements under the banner "21st Century" Boston1775 (talk) 15:07, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Information for those commenting on the page

When I began cleaning up and improving this article it had few inline citations and several facts were false. I added nearly 90% of the current article and I aimed to format it to the standards of a featured article on Wikipedia. This is my first article as I've been here for just over two weeks. I am unsure if the following things below are required to be fixed to achieve the feature article status.

1. Footnotes Many sentences are composed of concepts from multiple sources. Not sure if there is a way to make those multiple inline citations be just one inline citation if the sources are from two completely different titles (not just one title with different pages) Also not sure if this even matters.
2. Commanders The list of known commanders is incomplete so rather than make an incomplete commander list as a separate heading I just added the known commanders into the history description as opposed to making an incomplete list. If I ever am able to get the full list it will be added as a section.
3. Dates I added the year to nearly every date for consistency purposes but this might have been overkill.
4. Deletions The deletions listed above were found to be credited to the Michigan National Guard as a whole but not to the 119th Field Artillery in particular. In many cases, it was shown with accuracy that other units were involved and not the 119th Field Artillery specifically in regards to the Vietnam War and several of the Michigan blizzards. The quote by Pershing and the supposed origin of "Red Lions" is in conflict with the Heraldry which shows where the "Red Lion" came from. Lastly, it was shown that the HHB 119th Field Artillery was in Iraq but could find no sources they participated in the "Battle of Abu Ghraib". And email has been sent to the Michigan National Guard of Public affairs to see if they have any documentation regarding the events above.
5. Images Currently there are two pictures of the Croix de guerre were placed under review by an editor for not being contextually significant. An explanation was placed on both file pages and I believe (hope) they will be resolved. I understand this must be resolved before putting the article up for featured article status, however, I would appreciate comments while I wait to hear back on the matter.

Thank you for taking the time to review this article. Boston1775 (talk) 02:48, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Brief comments

• Wow, my first impression is that this article is way too long and detailed. We're writing an encyclopedia, which means that much information needs to be summarized. See WP:Summary style. You need to trim a lot of extraneous information that isn't relevant to the unit (is it really important who signed the paperwork when Germany surrendered?) for one and cut down on information that really isn't very important in the unit's history, like the names of towns that the regiment was deployed in during World War I. Transfers from one command to another, participation in notable battles or incidents, those are important facts that should be included. In short, I think that this article about twice as long as it needs to be.
• The article lead is supposed to summarize the entire article and should lack precise dates and details, both of which are currently plentiful. See WP:Lede for a guide on how to write a good lead.
• Not many editors have dived into unit histories like you have, but some of them had these same sorts of problems. The talk page shows my GA review of 149th Armored Regiment and its ACR where me and several reviewers worked hard to trim excess detail among other things. For a FA-caliber article on an infantry division see 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division; it might help you with figuring out the sorts of things that need to be covered and at what level of detail.
• Looking at the article's history, I see that user:Kges1901 recently expanded the article. We have worked together on several FACs, perhaps you might consider collaborating with him as I don't have the time for a more thorough critique.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:46, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
• PS If you want to pass FAC, you're really going to need to master the Manual of Style, especially the really nit-picky stuff like when to use endashes vs emdashes vs hyphens. It's hard to do, but the more you can internalize those rules, the easier time you'll have at FAC as you won't have to fix avoidable mistakes.
• It's also worthwhile reading through the current nominees at ACR and FAC to view the processes at work and seeing if the comments there apply to your own work.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)