Army: who does what and deployment

Factual Questions
1

(I know this might sound horribly naive, but I’ve never known anyone who ever served in the military and know very little about it)

I’m not sure exactly how to word this. Is there any military position that is near-guaranteed to not be handed a gun and expected to fight? I mean, I understand that in a situation where they are desperate for recruits they’ll probably send every available soldier out, but are the computer techs or the mechanics or cooks or people that keep things running smoothly in other ways expected to go out and actively fight? Do the people who maintain military websites like army.gov actually in the military? How specialized do things get, ie, is every aspect done by a recruit, like a little mini-society? Are the teachers for families that live on bases also in the military, or civilians?

Thanks!

2

All soldiers are expected to defend themselves if the situation requires it. If the self defense means you have to pick up your rifle, the Army has provided and maintained that training. As you suspect, cooks are not usually the first person to pick up a rifle, nor are lawyers, doctors, supply clerks, or band members.

There are a lot of civilians that work on the base to which I am assigned, and those include teachers and many other types of jobs. So, it isn’t really a mini society. I really don’t know about the people who maintain the military websites.

Sgt Schwartz

3

JAG guys?

4

Now that I have thought about it, Chaplains will never be issued a weapon in the Army. The are issued a chaplains assistant who is responsible for, among other things, defending the life of the chaplain if required.

Sgt Schwartz

5

Anyone who, by the treaties about war, has a non-combatant status isn’t supposed to take up arms. This includes Chaplains and I believe medics who are wearing the red cross arm band.

At the onset of WWII there was a song Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition about a Chaplain who supposedly manned a machine gun at Pearl Harbor after the gunner was killed. The US corrected the story as soon as possible after things settled down after the attack. Combat by a non-combatant, it was felt, would put all non-combatants in danger. At that time it was thought that the Japanese would honor the treaties regarding the conduct of war even though Japan wasn’t a party to most of them.

6

Starting from the last part: A huge part of the nonmilitary support services for the services are done by civilian employees of the Federal Government, or by contractors. For instance, the teachers at the on-base schools are civilian employees of a “School District” made up of the schools in the bases of that geographic region. Example: the Antilles School District employs the teachers at the schools for the children of personnel deployed to Ft. Buchanan, the Point Borinquen CGAS and the San Juan CG Station (and until they closed 3 years ago used to do so for the Roosevelt Roads and Sabana Seca Naval Stations). Use of civilian employees and contractors is ever more frequent in the current day, as the call is to have the trained soldiers (sailors, airmen, Marines, coasties) do the work of trained soldiers (etc.).
As for the first question: I could be snarky and say, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nobody is gonna put General Pace in a position to fight his own way out of anything except maybe a budget hearing :wink: .

But, seriously, as mentioned the Chaplain will not ordered to grab a weapon and take the line (though he may “praise God and pass the ammunition”). And the direct-commissioned Physician/Nurse or JAG lawyer, who do not get the full course of Basic Training, will not be routinely armed, though they may be issued a sidearm from the armory if the CO deems it appropriate for self-defense – anyway your MDs and Nurses are too valuable to risk in a shootout.

But the chaplain CAN be right behind the line, ministering under fire, same for a physician at the Field Hospital. And the JAG, unless he never leaves the Division HQ bunker, is as vulnerable to an IED as anyone else. Of course, if you’re Navy or Coast Guard afloat, everyone in the ship gets wet if it goes down…

A the Army enlisted personnel contracts do all stipulate that besides your specialty MOS, if necessary you will be called up to engage in the type of combat activity for which you got Basic Combat Training – things like defend the perimeter of your camp, if your frontline becomes flanked. George Patton famously called for the clerks and cooks to grab their weapons step into the line during the Battle fo the Bulge, when the infantry was stretched thin.

The military alternates your deployments so you get a mix of locations and unit assignments. If your MOS is Computer Geek, part of your enlistment may be setting up systems at a training facility in California, but your next billet may be systems maintenace for a deployed Armored Brigade, having to go out to Batallion HQs to fix malfunctions – and if it so happens that 2nd Batallion HQ is outside Fallujah… well…

7

If you want to be gaurunteed to not deploy, just become an infantryman and volunteer for combat about three dozen times. They’ll put you behind a desk just to spite you!

8

Patton was a first rate military thinker but he didn’t do everything. Third Army was not attacked during the Battle of The Bulge and was never in such desparate straits as to require this.

The units that were attacked were all part of First Army under General Courtney Hodges and they did press all hands into combat service including cooks, bakers, clerks etc. This was all done ad hoc at Company, Battalion and Regimental levels without the need for any orders from the stratosphere.

Patton was south of the bulge and was pulled back and sent north to attack the Germans from their flank. The 9th Army of Gen. William Simpson plus British units north of the bulge attacked south on the Germans other flank. This confined the breakthrough to a relatively narrow front and they were finally stopped just short of the Meuse River near the Belgian town of Dinant.

9

You seem bitter about something, but I can’t put my finger on it…

10

There you guys go again… clouding the issue with facts…

11

I knew a JAG lawyer (a woman, in fact) and yes, she indeed had some elementary training just in case the Commies tried to seize the file cabinets.

12

Their units may not be assigned to direct combat missions, but these people can and do perform guard duty in division service areas. It isn’t the front lines, but then again, anywhere in the modern battlespace can become an unexpected hotspot. Ask Jessica Lynch whether a support position is a cushy and safe place to be.

13

Not necessarily. One of the things that kept Mrs Gelding close to sane during the late unpleasantness in SE Asia was the constant reassurance that there were 15,000 soldiers between any judge advocate and anyone who could wish to do him harm. None the less, JAGs routinely carried a side arm for personal defense. Some guys went around with as much heat as a line infantryman and at least one guy chose a grenade launcher loaded with canister as his personal weapon. Even way back then on rare occasions JAGs were required by necessity to use their weapon.

In form and to a great extent in reality every soldier has been trained to use a personal weapon and almost every officer has been trained to use a wide range of personal and crew served weapons. Knowing how to head space a .50 cal machine gun is one of those basic skills that you never forget. It is reasonable to think that every soldier, and maybe every sailor and airman, should be ready and able to fall in behind a sandbag barrier and deliver effective fire to his front, no matter what his nominal job might be. The USMC, I believe, prides itself on the idea that every Marine is first and foremost a combat rifleman.

In the present unpleasantness when the principal risk appears to be from roadside bombs and rocket propelled grenades fired at low and slow flying ‘choppers it doesn’t look as if a non-combat assignment is much protection. Anybody in theater is at risk.

14

Thanks for the answers, everyone.

15

In the headquarters building I worked in, there was a big sign by the door that stated what our duties were. I can’t remember exactly what it said except for the last line. The first few lines went on about “Army standards” and “efficiently processing” or some other such crap, but the last line was kind of funny to us:

“To fight as Infantry in the event of war.”

Oh, yeah. We mail clerks, personnel clerks and supply clerks were a force to be reckoned with.

We were the Chairborne Rangers! We never retreat; we just backspace! Hoo-yah!

16

:smiley: :smiley: Hooah! I was told in my AIT school, that if I ever had to fire my weapon in combat, I should raise the white flag. If only they knew :smiley:

17

The “rear echelon” (butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers) of First Army didn’t have any combat training beyond Basic; most of them hadn’t even fired a weapon since then; they’d been taught to fire the carbine rather than the M-1. They still did a heckofa job. Since that time, NATO armies have explored ways of getting substantial weaponry into the hands of the support troops, but I’m not sure they ever did anything concrete.

In the USMC, everone is supposed to be a “Marine.” You’re supposed to know how to carry out combat maneuvers, even if you’re an aircraft mechanic. Dunno if that’s true, but that’s the rep. All Marines do get tested on weapons proficiency. But the Marines have almost no rear echelon personnel.

The USAF is rethinking their training in the light of actions such as those in Iraq. Supposedly, new recruits are gonna get a lot more combat training. Prolly a good thing.

Historically, being on a ship in the Navy put you in combat, no matter what you did. At sea, at least, there ain’t much difference; if the ship sinks you’re swimming whether you’re a gunner or a clarinetist. Probably still true, even on an aircraft carrier. In a sub, doubly so.

BTW, Patton pulled himself out of the line and headed north. He told Ike that he could be heading towards the “Bulge” in 72 hours;eEverybody else said he was nuts. He did it, though. The 101st that held Bastogne always claim that they didn’t need to be saved, but Patton’s move was great nonetheless.

PPS - Bastogne was also defended by other units, including rear echelon types.

18

Well, not quite. Even Army commanders don’t change their mission on their own initiative. The following is by memory from historian John Toland’s book Battle: Story of The Bulge.

When the German attack came Eisenhower summoned all high ranks, Army and above, to his headquarters. Patton was of the opinion that the attack was just what he called a “spoiler” designed to get the allied forces to pull troops away from those pressing hard and give the enemy some breathing room. But just in case, Patton and his staff formulated a plan to pull back and then turn north to attack the German flank, leaving a covering force to hold in place in their present positions. That plan and merely ignoring the German attack and letting First Army handle it were the two options.

When Patton arrived at the battle conference at heaquarters it became obvious that this was no mere “spoiler” but was a serious offensive. When asked how quickly he could disengage and get started north Patton gave what sounded like a ridiculously short time. Toland wrote that Eisenhower said, “Don’t be fatuous, George.” Patton supposedly answered that when Ike gave the word he could get things going in the time he had stated. When Ike said to do it, Patton got on the phone to his Deputy Commander and told him to execute Plan B. As a result the Third Army was on the move in short order. It was one of the best movements of that type by a large army on record. And it was because of good advance planning and a shrewd guess as to what would be the best course in case the offensive was a serious threat.

One sidelight that Toland reported. There was a sergeant driver for one of the generals trying to get some sleep in a hallway at headquarters when a bunch more generals came through. One of them trod heavily on the sergeant’s feet and he, hardly awake, said, “Hey you stupid son of a bitch, can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?” Then he awoke and recognizing Patton started to get up. Patton replied, “Go back to sleep, son. You’re the only son of a bitch around here who knows what he is trying to do.”