Category talk:War Veterans

All these war categories are starting to get way too specific for my tastes. Why do we need all them all? What's the point of them? Served in WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam (the latter which was primarily a Vietnamese, and--first--French, then an American war). Why not include the Boer Wars? Falklands? Russo-Japan War? Iraq, etc. See my point? Now we have a new category called "Combat Veterans."

When these categories first started, I thought the intent was to give tribute to those who served their countries (and not primarily Americans, which these categories mostly honor, it seems to me). But we seem to have gone way too specific and beyond that original idea.

I suggest revamping all these categories, and perhaps subsuming them all under one category called, e.g., "War Casualties." Relying on the dictionary, we could define "casualty" as including ONLY those killed, wounded, captured or missing in action in combat. This way we would not have to include all those hundreds of boxers who honorably served their countries in war (and thank you for that), but were not "casualties." And we would be honoring those who made a particular sacrifice during war. My two-cents worth. --Ric 10:15, 25 Feb 2006 (CST)

Combat veterans should be a category, which contains all the veterans groups of each war/conflict. For example under the combat veterans category, you should find World War I, WWII and Vietnam veterans, etc. Creating this category is a waste of time, and confusing as well. Now when adding a new boxer you have to add two categories.--Matt Tegen 10:34, 27 Feb 2006 (CST)

Let me clarify myself. It should be a category above the different war groupings. The specific war group, should suffice, to combine people who served in a particular war. There should be no fighters listed in this group, instead the categories for each war would be listed here. Therefore, if your interest in learning about combat veterans, this would be your starting point, from which to dig further into the subcategories, which are the individual groups based on war/conflict. Like this:[1] --Matt Tegen 13:02, 27 Feb 2006 (CST)

I'm going to get rid of the boxers in this category, unless I am given a reason why this can't be a sub-category for the different war groups.--Matt Tegen 15:28, 28 Feb 2006 (CST)

I created the catagory because it seemed you thought it wasn't warranted to list Joey Maxim as serving in WW 2 (when I entered him) although several others boxers in the same situation as him are listed. Why don't get rid of the differnt war groups. What precedent are you trying to set ? (Bert)

Regarding Maxim, my idea, was that you should use your judgement or information available to determine whether or not these boxers actually served in a War, and did not just join the military, as was very common during World War II. Based on common sense, you could figure that Maxim did not serve, therefore, he doesn't go in the category. This is the same logic I used in excluding Tiger Jack Fox, who joined the army, trained, but didn't go anywhere. Classifying people in the various war categories should be predicated on them actually serving in a war zone. Boxers don't need to be in this category, this should be a subgroup for all the conflicts. I think this is the best way for it. Having boxers in two categories because they served in a war zone, and one because they didn't, but joined the army doesn't make sense to me. I'm not sure people could figure out what you are trying to do, unless it was clarified on the page of the category.--Matt Tegen 16:32, 28 Feb 2006 (CST)

I'm now totally lost as to the purpose and value behind all these war categories. From what I can gather, we better start deleting Dempsey, Joe Louis, and many others from the WWII service category, if seeing actual combat is the criteria for inclusion. --Ric 17:39, 28 Feb 2006 (CST)

AS far as the US goes................ the U.S. Code [CITE: 38USC101] (12) The term ``veteran of any war means any veteran who served in the active military, naval, or air service during a period of war. Didn't mean to start this. I do think boxers like Joey Maxim should be mentioned as serving in the war. Had the US used a different method of ending the war many soldiers like him would have been called up into action. The military in the States uses their solders when & where they need them. I like the CV category. I like them all. It's not my call. Bert

Your right that the deciding factor is active duty, not inactive duty. That doesn't decipher between what your job is or not. For example, Al Gore is a Vietnam War veteran, even though he was just a war reporter in Vietnam, because he was active duty. Still, this category need not exist as a second designation for veterans, instead it should be a subgroup for all the veteran groups/wars. My concern was that by setting a low bar for inclusion, that we might cheapen the veteran designation. As we all know, there are many people out their alive and passed on, who have lied about their service, or exagerrated it.

Somewhere in all this we need to have some standards, or the category just becomes a joke. I'm going to start removing boxers from this list, as I think it is confusing to include them in here. Veteran is a veteran, and this category only creates a special class within that group.--Matt Tegen 14:13, 3 Mar 2006 (CST)

Writing paragraphs on a category

Bert, I deleted your discussion on military veterans that you wrote. Categories are collections of articles, not articles themselves. If you want to write about boxing and the military, start an article about boxing and the military. A category though, is not the place to do that.--Matt Tegen 12:58, 25 July 2006 (CDT)