Military MOS : In wars, how often do soldiers get shoved into infantry instead?

Factual Questions
61

I never claimed that basic rifle training is unique to the Marine Corps. Read my posts, the actual words that I used, not the preconceived and ill-conceived notions you may have about Marines and our training.

My point is that we both have used absolutes like all and every, and clearly we are making generalizations and not absolutes. Exceptions for the Army and the Marine Corps have been brought up, by DinoR and by you, respectively. Again, read the posts. RTFPs.

Again, I never claimed this was unique or special to the Marine Corps. Again, RTFPs.

I never said every Marine is a rifleman first, or every Marine’s primary MOS is Rifleman. Again, RTFPs. You may have heard this from other Marines. Heck, I may have used those words in another thread. But by that I mean, and have made clear in this thread, that every Marine qualifies annually with a rifle and it is a basic skill we all have. Not only Marines, I have never said that. You are hearing (reading) what you want to hear. RTFPs. We are not 0311s, nor have I claimed we are. But you and Bear_Nenno are talking as if that’s been asserted. You are way off the mark here.

Look, many of us Marines are proud that we served. We are proud to be The Few, The Proud. Many of us, not all. If that is a source of envy or anger for you, suck it up and deal with it, and then get over it. IME, a higher percentage of Marines are overtly proud of their service, with stickers on their cars or verbally, or posting about it, or celebrating annually our 10 November 1775 birthday, than are soldiers or sailors or airmen. We celebrate our Corps. I will not apologize for that, and I will say that our pride is a good thing.

If you are proud of your service, then good for you. But if you don’t like the fact that many Marines are proud of what we’ve done and what we’ve been a part of, then that’s just tough. Again I speak only of Marines. I am not saying that soldiers or sailors or airmen are not proud of their service.

MichaelEMouse, be careful as you are tooting that you don’t shit your pants.

As the late, great baseball star Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox said it, “As years go by, I think you appreciate more and more what a great thing it was to be a United States Marine. I am a US Marine and I’ll be one till I die.”

Amen, Ted, I will toot that horn. This is certainly true for me.
Getting back to Habeed and the OP, it is not a sham or a guise that the military hires men and women into MOSs other than combat arms and then redirects them to infantry-like responsibilities when pressed, especially during conflicts. As said here it is a rare event, although it was more common during WWII. While rare, it does happen. My artillery unit, when mobilized to Iraq, ended up performing an MP function. By then, I had already retired. The military will always redirect people to where they need you. They own you, and they never promised to keep you as a cook and also not put a rifle in your hands and put you in harm’s way.

It might be in the small print of the contracts we signed - that the military can repurpose you as needed. That’s an interesting point and I might dig up my originial contract from 1980 when I enlisted and see if it’s there.

There may be people who enlist with the belief that they’ll never be put in harm’s way even if they are a cook. At best that’s being naive, however, there are many recruiters who have flat-out lied to innocent kids in order to sign up more recruits.

62

:dubious:

63

I guess nuances are lost on some. The key missing word in what you quote is ‘first’.

Every Marine is a rifleman is equivalent to saying that while we may hold other jobs, we are also riflemen. That’s not the same as saying we are all riflemen first. The 0311s are riflemen first.

64

Funny you mention the “IT network guy”. I was in active duty in the Army as a TOW/Javelin repairer. I got out of the Army after a tour in Iraq where I basically did my job 25% of the time, and lots of guard duty and manual labor the other 75% of the time, as I related in post #8. Then I got out, started college, bought a house, and had a kid.

Enter Bush’s “surge”, circa 2007 (2.5 years after I got out of the Army). Since I was still on “inactive duty” or the IRR, I got the call. Apparently, some National Guard unit in Stockton, California was about to deploy, and they needed someone with my MOS so they could check “fully staffed” off their pre-deployment checklist.

But when I got to Iraq the second time, I realized they had given my job to civilian contractors from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Since I was in college to be an electrical engineer, I was given the job of assistant Information Management Officer, which is basically the company’s “IT network guy” (and I was not an officer, that was just the job title). Since I was an assistant, and not needed all the time, I also spent about half my second tour fixing printers, desktops and laptops with a bunch of civilians from Tobyhanna Army Depot.

So my experience in Iraq the second time was basically your scenario in reverse. I signed up for one job, but when I was deployed they didn’t need me to do that job, so they shoved me into an IT role instead.

Interestingly, Wikipedia doesn’t mention the most common backronym I heard, which was “Pussies On the Ground”.

65

I was a platoon sergeant when my reserve unit was mobilized for Desert Shield / Desert Storm. One guy in my platoon was a med student, and all of a sudden he claimed CO, Conscientious Objector. I talked to him directly, called him at home, to talk with him. Until that point Smitty (not his real name) had been a good guy, one of us. A few discussions with him, to point out that his decision might have lifelong consequences, did not dissuade him. We mobilized, and he stayed home.

Years later I was given a heads up to possibly testify at his court martial. I was never called in, but Smitty was tried. I don’t know how his story ended.

Some military people want to go to war, while others like me are ready for it if called to serve but would rather not be shot at if we had the choice. And yet for others like Smitty, they don’t fully realize that we might be called to harm’s way on a moment’s notice – maybe they know it in the back of their brain, but when the orders finally come they wake up and realize that holy shit, this is for real. That’s what happened to Smitty, or at least that’s what he told me. We had a good rapport at the time and I can take him at his word. He was a Lance Corporal or Corporal at the time, and I was a Staff Sergeant. I didn’t light into him, I wanted him to make sure he fully understood the consequences of his actions. Smitty had always been a good guy. But when he chose to go CO, yeah I was a little disappointed. But each man makes his decision.

When we mobilized, some guy from southern Texas joined us because he was on the IRR. He didn’t want to be called up, but he had no real choice so he was there with us as we trained and prepared. So, many people see it as a calculated risk, and sometimes you get called to step up. That was back then, in a day when we were mostly at peace especially after the Cold War ended, and with Desert Shield being one of the first major conflicts since Vietnam.

And, POG - that must be more of an Army term. In my USMC years I never heard that, it was always called REMFs.

66

Is there a version without all the jargon in the way?

67

Allow me
MP - Military Policeman
OIF - Operation Iraqi Freedom
OEF - Operation Enduring Freedom (aka Afgahnistan)
74D - it’s right their they deal with CBRNE threats/attacks :stuck_out_tongue: well not so much the E
CBRNE - acronym for Chemical Biological Radio Nuclear and Explosives
25U - It’s right there they are commo aka communications.
M2 - a .50 caliber heavy machine gun

68

Do you suppose that his platoon sergeant not following the prescribed procedures and considering him “not one of us” had anything, anything at all, with him sticking to his objection?

As to “lifelong consequences”: What would they be? One does not get a punitive discharge for being a conscientious objector.

You should know that one does not face court-martial for conscientious objection. You shouldn’t have too much trouble discovering what the outcome of his court-martial was and what the charges were. After all, you know his name and you likely know the unit to which he was assigned at the time you were informed you may be a witness.

Conscientious objectors are not “bad guys”. You’re trotting out more nonsense here. The nonsense is your attitude. One would hope that you are no longer serving and also are no longer subject to recall.

69

the E in CBRNE is supposed to be “Enhanced conventional munitions” not “explosives”. Unfortunately, even the CBRNE headquarters has screwed that one up enough times that the official title will no doubt be changed to explosives in no time. Thing is, regular explosives are handled by EOD and have little to do with CBRNE.

70

CBRNE. Thanks for spelling that out, Dino. In the Marines our term is NBC - for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare. It was called this in the 80s and 90s.

71

Does “enhanced conventional munitions” include more than cluster bombs?

72

A platoon sergeant counseling his Soldiers IS prescribed procedure AFAIK.

And since there is not currently a draft, random people who voluntarily enter the military, get training, pay, and benefits, and then claim conscientious objector status only on the cusp of getting sent to combat are quite rightly suspected of self-serving deception. While it’s possible for someone to have a philosophical break with their earlier self who signed them up, it is more likely they either already had objections to fighting and just hoped they would not be called (fraud) or they are lying about their objections with the intent to avoid service (malingering or worse).

You have always had to convince the military of your conscientious objector status, no one can just say the words and get a free pass home. It’s a pretty strict standard, and the military can certainly court martial someone who claims CO status if they think it’s only to avoid a deployment.

73

I should be more clear that I did not contact Smitty to counsel him. The purpose of me contacting him was to notify him of our mobilization and upcoming formations. Over the course of this process, that’s when he shared his contemplating, and then later affirming, his CO status. He disclosed it to me, and he wanted to discuss it with me. And we did.

74

Cluster bombs actually wouldn’t fit. They are just small bombs ejected or scattered from a dispenser.

Enhanced could include thermobaric weapons - Thermobaric weapon - Wikipedia for all the variants.

Enhanced would include things like intelligent fuzing, guidance packages in munitions as small as 20 to 40mm, advanced explosives and propellants. Non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) weapons also exist and use conventional chemical explosives in functioning.

75

Yeah, by definition, a volunteer cannot also be a Conscientious Objector. If going to war was against his sincerely-held beliefs, a career in the armed forces was perhaps an unwise choice on his part.

Air Force here. We all received some very basic combat skills training during Basic, and we all had to go to the range (I’m not sure if everyone had to qualify or not, I know I scored Expert). That said, Monty, with all due respect, you’re coming off as just a wee bit pedantic with your thing about “Every Marine is a Rifleman”. Air Force has a similar expression, that we’re all “Warrior Airmen”. It basically means that no support job will guarantee that you stay safe and untarnished by the horrors of war.

I work an office job, and I do recall manning a defensive fighting position one cold night because some joker set off a car bomb outside the gate of our base in Afghanistan. It’s just the reality of the job.

76

Good job on completely missing the point. “Warrior Airman” is not an actual AFSC; however, 0311 (aka Rifleman) is an actual MOS.

77

Thing is, all the services have something similar. Soldier first; Warrior Airmen; Every Marine a rifleman… and Im sure Navy has something. In my experience, Marines seem to believe there is something unique about their mantra. Even in this thread it was brought up as if the concept were exclusive to The Marines.
Look at the way you mention that every airmen receives basic warrior training. You are humble and aware of the simplicity of this training. Marines, on the other hand, seem to believe they are all trained and skilled beyond even combat infantrymen in the Army. It gets old and annoying. Its like being a cop and having mall security guys you run into always explaining how highly trained they are and how they are basically cops.
I believe Monty was Navy, which means he had to work around soft skilled Marine POGs on a daily basis. No doubt he had to listen to this hourly. I completely understand his irritability.

78

I did my first enlistment in the US Army. A little more than a year after I finished that enlistment (as extended), I enlisted in the US Navy, remaining in service and on active duty until I transferred to the Fleet Reserve and finally being retired. Note that I was a drilling reservist in the US Army Reserves during my gap between the Army and the Navy.

Yes, the Marine Mantra is annoying. The most annoying part about it is its inaccuracy. Other “military myths” that get my goat are:

[ol][li]Members of the military are not subject to civilian prosecution, either overseas or in the US.[/li][li]There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine.[/li][li]Medal of Honor awardees must be saluted by officers who outrank said awardees.[/li][li]Foreign nationals cannot join the military.[/li][li]Members of the military give up all their rights when they join.[/li][li]Members of the military are not permitted to vote.[/li][li]Members of the military are government property.[/li][li]If a member of the military injures himself, either on purpose or accidentally, he’s subject to prosecution for “damage to government property”.[/li][li]Muslims cannot join veterans’ groups such as the VFW or the American Legion.[/ol][/li]
There are a few others, but these will do for now.

79

Honestly, the only Marine meme that really ever annoyed me was the bit about them being the oldest service because they were established in 1775 (the US Marine Corps was established in 1798, the Continental Marines having been disbanded in 1783. If we’re allowed to include predecessor organizations, the National Guard dates back to 1636, making them the oldest.)

But all of that is widely off topic I think.

80

Yes, agree, it’s off topic. But, both the US Army and US Navy were created in 1775 before the USMC’s 1775 date of 10 November (14 June and 13 October, respectively).