Many people rushed to join the military in the wake of Sept 11, saying they wanted to fight for their country. I also remember all the protest over all the men being sent to Vietnam (and, later the Gulf) to die.
How many would actually fight and see combat? How many would actually be infantry, tote a gun, actually see action?
IIRC, in WW2, for every one person at the front, 2 would be working behind the lines as support, logistic, administrative, engineers, repairs, etc. What’s the ratio today?
Of the army and marines in Vietnam and the Gulf, what percentage were actual infantry soldiers?
I’ll include tanks and mobile units (Bradleys, armed humvees) as fighting types. Not sure about artillery, since they’re sometimes miles from a front. But not ones who drove oil trucks or delivered supplies and ammos (although in raids, they could be expected to fight).
I only mentioned the army and marines, since the navy are (mostly) aboard ships and most of the air force’s combatants are officers flying jets and bombers. In the present conflicts, they are mostly out of the way (except the relative handful of men in the fighter planes and bombers).
Not to say those others aren’t working hard to serve their country, but how many will actually be the soldiers with guns?
This might come as a complete shock to you, but other countries have navies also. Sometimes two countries, both with navies, go to war. Draw your own conclusion from that.
I think Monty was referring to wars, such as WW II, wherein there were major hostile naval engagements, whereas the OP might have been thinking more of more recent hostilities that have not had a lot of capital ships fighting each other.
Within even a USMC Infantry Battalion, there are three Infantry Companies, one Heavy Weapons Company, and one Headquarters and Services, (H&S) Company. A fully staffed H&S Company has 200 Marines and 69 Navy. They are technically not trigger pullers. Each FULLY STAFFED Heavy Weapons Company has 154 Marines, but 7 are in the Company HQ, and 5 are in the Fire Direction Center, not technically trigger pullers. Even within the Infantry Company itself, with 182 Marines when fully staffed, the 6 in the HQ element are not trigger pullers. For these purposes, I count anyone at Platoon level a trigger puller.
So even in the fighting unit of an Infantry Battalion, there are 605 Military people, and 287 are in support or staff positions. 52.5% are Trigger Pullers. I find that interesting.
I’m not sure if the Marines – where every man is first and foremost a rifleman – is a good indicator of the situation with the armed forces as a whole.
Belive it or not, it’s hard to get into a front line combat unit as a trigger puller. Nobody is going to put you there if you don’t want to be there. It’s also hard to be in top physical shape, etc. Slackers don’t cut it in Airborne, or Marines, or anything else. You really need to want to be there. In a war like Vietnam, a lot of people saw some action, but not that many saw action all the time. My guess is 1 out of 10, in TODAY’s armed forces, will see action regularly in a conflict, although I’m sure many would disagree on that number. I’m off to check my vietnam numbers.
Also, before I check them, I would guess that less than 2 million men saw much action in ww2. and we had over 10 million in uniform then. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if only 10% of wwII soldiers were in front line combat units. Armies carry a lot of baggage with them…
Si, Senor, I was interested that the Infantry Battalion had so MUCH interior “support”. At first glance I would have thought they had less. I’d support that less than 20% WAG overall.
I wasn’t trying to incite any inter-service rivalries!
I was simply curious in our post-WW2 forces, how many are actually combat soldiers? If we send 100,000 to the Gulf, how many are actually trigger-pullers, as UncleBill perfectly rephrased.