Should I include military ranks of authors I cite?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook.

Like other professional titles, military ranks are omitted before authors’ names in entries and when the authors are mentioned in prose, but you may indicate an author’s rank in a description:

William C. Westmoreland, a former United States Army general, describes his experiences in Vietnam in A Soldier Reports.