# Are US Army doctors in the field armed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865 "2010-03-26T13:21:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AmunRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AmunRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmunRa)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/21 "2010-03-29T00:35:28Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > The “enemy combatants” he referred to were those who do not belong to a government’s armed forces and are not members of a uniformed military. Medical personnel of the United States Army do not fit that description. Of course those same enemy combatants aren’t going to follow the G.C. if they capture me so it doesn’t really matter if _I_ follow the G.C. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/22 "2010-03-29T02:00:43Z")
> [@AmunRa](#): > > OK, I should have specified that I meant today. No medic in the US army today is going to get away with not carrying a weapon. Cite: I just spent four years as an army medic and one of my greatest fears during that time was that I would actually have to shoot someone. At least if you shot someone, you would be able to fix them … grin duck and run ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/23 "2010-03-29T02:15:20Z")
> [@AmunRa](#): > > Of course those same enemy combatants aren’t going to follow the G.C. if they capture me so it doesn’t really matter if _I_ follow the G.C. Ah, but it does. _They_ aren’t going to, but _we should_ (and most often, especially from a medical standpoint, _do_), if we are going to maintain the ever-tenuous moral high ground. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/24 "2010-03-29T09:24:40Z")
Hawkeye’s wiki page doesn’t seem to mention his being a conscientious objector. How did he get away with not carrying a gun? He was a captain. I suspect MASH is a big reason for people’s impression that army docs don’t carry guns. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/25 "2010-03-29T13:45:51Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > Hawkeye’s wiki page doesn’t seem to mention his being a conscientious objector. How did he get away with not carrying a gun? He was a captain. I suspect MASH is a big reason for people’s impression that army docs don’t carry guns. In the novel, he did carry a sidearm - ISTR a scene where a jeep backfired and he and another doc returned fire. And yes, it was probably the “I’ll carry a tune…” scene that led me to believe it wasn’t SOP for doctors to be armed. And in the MASH show, I don’t remember anyone in camp carrying a gun, except Klinger on guard duty. Even Potter only brought a sidearm because they were travelling to an aid station through a dangerous area. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/26 "2010-03-29T15:50:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Police actions” are de facto wars, and the Geneva Conventions still apply. Wont go into too much detail but at least some British troops in the police action in the former Yugoslavia were told that in the event of capture they would have no protection under any conventions,not because of their job(They were only crap hats),but because the action wasn’t a bona fide war. Maybe the British military legal system got it wrong when they instructed the troops in this,I wouldn’t know as I’m not a lawyer, barrackroom or otherwise. A brief aside about special forces of all nations: whether you’re in a declared "official war"or not. Regardless of who you are fighting you will not be protected by any legaliese from murder on capture, or torture then murder on capture. These are known as "Big Boys"rules and are made extremly plain to anyone taking selection for special forces,BEFORE, they they hopefully get through. Showing my age here,we were told that if caught by the Russians that after three days we would be executed because any information extracted from us after that period would be out of date and that we were considered to dangerous to keep alive. Melodramatic I know but thats what they told us in R.to I.training. ---
**Author:** ![davekhps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@davekhps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davekhps)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/27 "2010-03-29T16:46:37Z")
> [@doubled](#): > > Tell that to Dick Cheney and his crew. To this day, he still claims the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to various “enemy combatants” picked up in Afghanistan and Iraq, but his reasoning for that determination sounds to me like basically “the Geneva Convention applies only when we say it does”. Don’t want to derail a fascinating thread, but FYI: the GC applies only when you are signatories to the convention. Non-state actors, by definition, can’t be parties to the treaty. The GC doesn’t define what, exactly, unlawful combatants are, but by process of elimination, Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan are unlawful combatants. What we do with them? Well, that’s politics. If you don’t like them, vote the Obama Administration out of office (because they’re following the exact same policies the previous administration followed). / rant, happy to go to Great Debates ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/28 "2010-03-29T20:59:27Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > Hawkeye’s wiki page doesn’t seem to mention his being a conscientious objector. How did he get away with not carrying a gun? He was a captain. I suspect MASH is a big reason for people’s impression that army docs don’t carry guns. Because he made such a big deal about bucking the requirements? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/29 "2010-03-31T14:12:07Z")
> [@UncleBill](#): > > Next time you get to talk to him or write him, pass along the thanks from some dude on the internet, Devil Docs are a special breed. Thanks, UncleBill – he’s a pretty good guy. He’s in Afghanistan right now, but is supposed to be home soon. I have no idea how many medics have actually participated in combat (some, I imagine) but, according to Nick, the purpose of his sidearm is to enable him to protect himself and his patients. Some Corpsmen (again, according to Nick) prefer to carry a bigger gun instead. A sidearm in a holster is easier, though, since the Corpsman also have to carry their medical pack. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/30 "2010-03-31T14:53:54Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > In the novel, he did carry a sidearm - ISTR a scene where a jeep backfired and he and another doc returned fire. And yes, it was probably the “I’ll carry a tune…” scene that led me to believe it wasn’t SOP for doctors to be armed. And in the MASH show, I don’t remember anyone in camp carrying a gun, except Klinger on guard duty. Even Potter only brought a sidearm because they were travelling to an aid station through a dangerous area. there were a number of episodes with Frank Burns and his sidearm and mishaps. he also did have a rifle and grenades in 1 or more episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/31 "2010-03-31T17:00:24Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > there were a number of episodes with Frank Burns and his sidearm and mishaps. he also did have a rifle and grenades in 1 or more episodes. Not to mention, one time, a tank. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/32 "2010-04-01T00:36:27Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > Because he made such a big deal about bucking the requirements? :dubious: I don’t understand this response. Hawkeye blatantly flouts the standing order to carry a pistol without being accepted as a conscientious objector. How does he get away with this? Is it just because the producers don’t want to et into the facts, and present a hippie-type doctor in the military? ---
**Author:** ![whorfin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@whorfin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whorfin)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/33 "2010-04-01T01:43:29Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > I don’t understand this response. > > Hawkeye blatantly flouts the standing order to carry a pistol without being accepted as a conscientious objector. How does he get away with this? Is it just because the producers don’t want to et into the facts, and present a hippie-type doctor in the military? Well, I’m sure a lot of it was just plot–because it’s not all that interesting to do a show about a regulation surgeon, and no way to create tension when, say, a general showed up, or when hawkeye needed a pistol, and so on ad infinitum. However, I also can think of some fairly realistic reasons that would make it likely for such flagrant disregard of regulation to be either ignored or condoned, and my guess is that there were at least some examples of similar hippie-like doctors: -there was no real punishment (especially as Hawkeye didn’t seem to care about promotion or an army career): surgeons were in short supply, so they weren’t going to fire/jail him, or turn him into a rifleman, and they weren’t going to transfer him–as every other surgical job (say, one in tokyo, or in a VA hospital in the US) was better than the one he had (in a safer/more civilized place), and –that they were close enough to the front lines that it was rare to find people who demanded compliance with “real army” regulations, or at least any who had to be obeyed (vice Burns/Winchester) (as opposed to the occasional episode when a general showed up), and –a little eccentricity was more or less ignored under such high-stress conditions, especially when it was someone like Hawkeye–who had a specialist job, and was very good at it; both Potter and Blake didn’t really seem care how weird, or how "army’ their surgeons were, as long as they were good surgeons. And there are, in fact, a few real-world examples. The one that I can think of offhand is the USS South Dakota in WWII, where the captain was famous for letting his crew ignore regulations about dress/grooming, and it was more or less condoned because (1) he was a battleship captain in a war zone, and (2) they were, if not the best, close to the best gunners in the fleet. ---
**Author:** ![Necros](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/necros/32/11086_2.png) [@Necros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necros)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2010, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865/34 "2010-04-01T23:10:21Z")
My dad was an Army doctor in Korea (during the early '70s) and based on his stories of basic training, it would probably be safer for those around them if the docs were not allowed to carry firearms. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-us-army-doctors-in-the-field-armed/533865.md?page=1)