Military ranks are capitalized only when they sit right before a person's name, like "General Mark Milley." They are lowercase everywhere else, including "the general spoke" or "she outranks every captain." That single rule governs almost every real-world case.

Getting this right matters for résumés, news copy, and any page that covers military ranks. The rule sounds simple. The exceptions around abbreviations, retired officers, and style-guide differences are where most writers slip.

The AP style rule, with examples

The Associated Press Stylebook treats a military rank as a formal title. Capitalize it when it comes directly before a full name or last name. Lowercase it in every other position, including after a name or standing in for one.

Notice the pattern. The rank is capitalized only in the left-hand example, right before the name. Drop the name, and the rank drops back to lowercase.

How the Chicago Manual of Style differs

The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with AP on the core rule. Capitalize a rank immediately before a name; lowercase it elsewhere. Chicago adds one extra wrinkle AP does not spell out as clearly.

Chicago lowercases a title used in apposition, meaning it is set off by commas and could be removed without changing the sentence. "The general, Mark Milley, gave the order" lowercases "general" because it is describing him, not functioning as part of his name. AP writers rarely hit this construction, but book and academic editors following Chicago see it often.

Abbreviated ranks: Sgt., Capt., Lt. Col.

Abbreviated ranks follow the same before-the-name rule and stay capitalized. "Sgt. Maj. Robert Hall," "Capt. Maria Lopez," and "Lt. Col. Grace Kim" all keep capital letters, exactly like their spelled-out forms.

This is where the rule trips up more writers than any other part of it. A period after an abbreviation looks like the end of a sentence, so some writers reflexively lowercase the next word out of habit. "Sgt. carter" is wrong. "Sgt. Carter" is correct, and the abbreviation itself, "Sgt.," is always capitalized regardless of position because it functions as a proper noun once shortened.

AP maintains a specific abbreviation list by branch. Army and Marine Corps ranks abbreviate differently than Navy and Coast Guard ranks, which use rank titles like "Petty Officer" instead of "Sergeant." A page like our Army ranks guide lists the full set of Army abbreviations if you need the exact short form for a specific pay grade.

Retired and former rank usage

A retired officer keeps the capitalized rank when it still functions as a title before the name. "Retired Gen. David Petraeus testified before Congress" is correct AP style. Lowercase "retired," but keep the rank itself capitalized.

AP specifically advises against the abbreviation "Ret." Spell out "retired" in full rather than writing "Gen. (Ret.) David Petraeus." The same pattern applies to "former": "former Capt. Maria Lopez now works in logistics" keeps the rank capitalized because it still precedes her name as a title.

Ranks used as common nouns

A rank used generically, without a name attached, is always lowercase. "Every captain in the fleet reports to the admiral" has no capitals because neither word names a specific person.

One quirk worth flagging: some branch-run publications capitalize service-member nouns like "Soldier," "Marine," "Sailor," "Airman," and "Guardian." They treat these as proper nouns for the profession. That is a branch-specific convention, not an AP or Chicago rule, and it does not extend to ranks themselves. A "General" is still lowercase as a generic noun even in Army-published material; only the branch nouns get the capital-letter treatment in that style.

Warrant officers and five-star ranks

Warrant officers follow the identical rule as any other rank. "Chief Warrant Officer Anna Reyes briefed the crew" capitalizes the full title before her name, and "the warrant officer briefed the crew" lowercases it once the name drops away.

Historic five-star ranks like "General of the Army" and "Fleet Admiral" are compound titles rather than single words, but the same logic applies. Capitalize the full compound phrase before a name, as in "General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower." Lowercase it in generic reference, as in "only a handful of officers ever held that rank."

Résumé and LinkedIn conventions

Résumés and LinkedIn profiles commonly break from AP style on purpose. Job titles in a résumé header or experience section are conventionally capitalized as a block, regardless of sentence position, because they function like headline text rather than narrative prose.

"Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army" reads correctly capitalized on a résumé even with no name attached, because it is functioning as a job title label, not a sentence. That is title-case formatting, a different convention than AP's name-adjacency rule. Writers who apply strict AP rules to résumé bullets often end up under-capitalizing rank titles that hiring managers expect to see capitalized.

Common mistakes