Oddest thing on my drive to work this morning. I’m making my way to the freeway and notice the car in front of me has Arizona plates. Weird. Arizona plates, driving in a purely residential neighbourhood in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at 7:30AM in November. And as I pull up right behind him, I see that above the plates are a bunch of stick-on letters:
Oh, this guy will fit right in around here.
And then as we both make our way to the freeway and stop at the next lights I see on the deck of the trunk there’s more lettering:
Well, I may not be intimately familiar with the organizational structure of the US military, but I’m pretty confident that this guy wasn’t in the 2nd Marine and 3rd Army divisions simultaneously, though for all I know the 18th Airborne is part of one or the other. Moreover, my impression is that Marines are generally convinced that they’re too good to be Army, though I suppose that could be more pop culture than reality. So is this at all common? And what the heck was this guy doing driving from a residential area to an industrial area at 7:30 in the morning two thousand miles from home? I lost track of him on the freeway so theoretically he might have been heading out of town, but he was driving like a commuter, not like someone passing through.
And the macho posturing on the trunk didn’t come anywhere near to compensating for the alternative fuel tag on the license plate of his treehugger Civic Hybrid.
My dad was in the Navy for ten years and the Air Force 12 years. He made the switch when I was born. He’d been deployed a lot out at sea. He wanted to be home more after my birth. He was a radioman in the Navy and was retrained to repair air craft instruments in the Air Force. But mostly he was a supervisor in the instrument shop. He didn’t do a lot of hands on work.
Not sure of the rules. It’s probably done whenever the persons reenlistment option comes up.
Anyway, how do you know that the stickers were in chronological order? Maybe he went from the Army to the Marines.
Or, he could have gotten out of one service (honorable discharge), then he decided to reenlist, and for some reason, he went with the other service. Maybe all the slots for his preferred job were filled in his old service, or the other service had an enlistment bonus he wanted, or maybe he wanted to be deployed somewhere specific that the other service handled, or maybe he wanted to see a different part of the service.
I know someone who went US Army - > US Air Force as a commissioned officer (O-2? but he was definitely in the early part of his career.) He spent the rest of his military career in the AF. His commission transferred just fine, and I believe the rank too.
Well, obviously I don’t know anything about the guy, so sure it could’ve been reverse chronological order. If I’m remembering the dates right there was a gap in deployments so discharge and re-enlist would make sense.
The whole thing was just kind of surreal. We don’t put political commentary on our cars much in these parts.
I don’t have any hard numbers, but transfers from Marines to Army are not all that uncommon. Anecdotally, in an Army Reserve unit of ~100 soldiers I can think of at least 5 former marines.
Going Army - Marine, on the other hand, is virtually unheard of. The corps has a certain, um, mentality, and prefers to do its own indoctrination. The Marines are the only branch that is this particular, transfers between the big three, particularly enlisted, happen frequently.
It happens. A friend of mine from high school was a Marine, served his time and became a teacher in Virginia. Then he hankered a bit for the military life again, joined the Va. Natl. Guard and served with an Army infantry unit as a VNGman in Iraq.
Whether he went from Army to Marines or Marines to Army, it would have involved a discharge and a reenlistment. There are no “transfers”.
With that said, small Army elements are sometimes attached to Marine units and visa versa. There are Army Soldiers that spent their deployment attached to a Marine division. These Soldiers often where the combat patch of the Marine unit they were attached to despite the fact that the Marines do not wear unit patches. Much debate and confusion ensues from there. There are also former Marines who are now Soldiers, but wear the combat patch of the Marine Division they deployed with during their previous enlistment.
This is why you see patches like this worn by US Army personnel:
The aspect that doesn’t fit in is the political commentary in hand-applied letters on the back of the car, not that he’s a combat vet. And I’m still curious what brings an Arizonan to Saskatchewan in November, as the usual migration direction this time of year is the other way about.
I’ve met a few folks who have done the service switch thing. One of them was co-worker who had started off in the Army, and then decided to re-enlist in the Navy, eventually working his way up to senior chief. When I asked him why he changed services, he said “Too much walking in the Army.” Hm. Good point.
I’ve met at least half a dozen Soldiers who were former Marines. In the AF Reserve Flight attached to my shop, we have an Air Force MSgt who is a prior Marine. It’s not uncommon. But as Bear says, it involves a discharge and reenlistment. On my deployment this year, I was attached to an Army Brigade. I wore the Army OCPs and sleeve patches. Good times, good times.
Hell, my first position was working for 2 MARDIV, under an Army Brigade, on a Navy-led CJTF Battalion Staff with an Army Company and an AF Flight underneath.
Tripler
. . . all I was missin’ was the Coast Guard.
Not going to comment on the specific guy that you were asking about but to reiterate what others have said and to add a few points…
An Army soldier can be attached to a Marine command such as in Fallujah where the Army [del]rescued[/del] fought side by side with the Marines.
Several years ago the Army was actively seeking those in other branches to come over. The Army had to expand, other services were staying the same or downsizing and promotion opportunities were better in the Army.
Marine Reserve units are small and spread out. Those leaving active duty and wishing to stay in part time sometimes have trouble finding the kind of job they want in their local Marine Reserve unit. Many of those join the Army National Guard. The education benefits are better too.
Other way around. The XVIII Airborne is one of the four active combat corps of the US army (the others are I, III, and V corps).
The XVIII corps was made of four component combat divisions–3rd infantry division, 10th mountain division, 82nd airborne division, and 101st airborne division (along with numerous units of lower echelon).
Divisions are currently being shifted from corps to command organization (every division above save the 82nd are now components of FORSCOM, and the 82nd will be once off deployment)
In short, your driver displayed the XVIII Airborne sticker as a member of the 3rd ID. While a 2nd Marine regiment has been attached to the XVIII in the past few years, if it did say ‘division’ then I’d have to assume your man had transferred services.
I always note that, too, when I see southern plates on cars in Calgary mid-winter - like, “Jeeze, I hope you did your homework before coming here.” I suspect they are family members who are from here - I hope so, anyway, so they don’t get too surprised by the weather.
