How trained for combat are the "non-combatant" combatants?

March 29, 2011 11:40 AM

What sort of combat training do US Army soldiers in non-combat MOSs (women in particular) get after boot camp?

I'm interested in general answers, but in particular I'm wondering about soldiers facing (or currently serving) deployments in Iraq & Afghanistan. Are there "refresher" courses? Do non-combat MOS soldiers frequently go on combat-ish training maneuvers? Would a soldier (particularly a woman) have the chance to take optional training?

I'm particularly interested in Intelligence MOS sorts (Human Intel Collector, Counterintel), but honestly secretarial and other support type stuff would be of interest, too.

I know the Marine Corps has an ethic of "Every Marine is a rifleman," but does the Army come close to that same attitude?

posted by scaryblackdeath to Law & Government (5 answers total)

Response by poster: My own experience (US Coast Guard in the '90s) was that you only got trained for what you were likely to do. I got extra firearms training because I was going to be on a boarding team, but as soon as I got transfer orders for A school I got pulled out of the training program. Wasn't worth the money to 'em. (Of course, I felt MUCH better about those two months of karate classes in high school when I saw what boarding team unarmed defense classes were like...) Does the Army have that same ethic?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:44 AM on March 29, 2011

Best answer: Everyone who's about to deploy goes through basic weapons familiarization, team tactics (combat movement, clearing a room, setting up a perimeter) and a few hours of unarmed combat as part of pre-deployment training.

Day-to-day in garrison, there's a certain level of annual refresher training, but a lot of units don't take it very seriously, since a finance clerk isn't going to need to deploy into combat without enough time to get refreshed. Even the intel guys, unless they're specifically in a unit on a short string, will likely half-ass it (unless their CO is a fan).

As for additional training, it varies widely, depending on your unit, your schedule, where you are, who you know...
posted by Etrigan at 12:03 PM on March 29, 2011

Best answer: "I am a soldier first; but a/an (insert MOS specialty here) second to none" is a common mindset of the Army; along with all soldiers are infantry soldiers.

Training from unit to unit varies, some take it as a professional obligation; others take it as an obligation. I.E. office staff platoon might just well be better trained and prepared than too slacky infantry platoon... leadership dictates the tempo and level of excellence in military; just as in any given civilian job. Some meet standards; others exceed and further standards.

Gals and guys are treated/trained the same; more so every year.

Gotta add; I've seen nothing but ummm... outstanding intel units in the Army; AF not so much. YMMV.
posted by buzzman at 4:47 PM on March 29, 2011

Once you get through AIT and to your permanent unit I think a lot depends on the leadership of that unit and what they think you're likely to be doing.

I have some family currently in AFG and they did a lot of predeployment training. Here's an article that might be of interest, describing one unit's (2/503d, which doesn't have any women in it, but the training philosophy seems pretty standard) predeployment training:

"The battalion further reviewed the Mission Essential Task List to identify essential battle tasks, collective tasks, and individual tasks. It was obvious that not every task could be resourced, trained, and retrained enough to ensure every Soldier met the “go” standard, but subject matter experts could be identified for each task and Soldiers could be made at least familiar with selected tasks. [...] All companies were called upon to maneuver regardless of specialty or function."

I know some 88Ms (truck drivers) who talked about doing react-to-IED and react-to-SAF drills quite regularly prior to convoy duty in Iraq. So there's definitely training out there, but what training a particular unit or individual gets is going to depend a lot on the specifics of what they're going out to do.

Somewhat related: there was at one point a few years back supposedly a sort of backdoor way for female officer candidates to get into combat arms branches by going to a combat support branch and then branch detailing into a combat arms branch. I'm not sure if they've closed that hole, and to be honest I never met anyone who said they'd actually done it, it was sort of a theoretical thing. (And possibly just a ploy to try and get more high-OML women to choose some less-popular branches.) But, so the story went, a woman could branch Transpo (which involved going to Transportation OBC) and then requesting to branch detail to Artillery (going to Artillery OBC) and spend a certain amount of time as an artillery officer before returning to Transportation. Always seemed risky to me. I'm not sure if anything similar exists for enlisted personnel.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:00 PM on March 29, 2011

Honestly there's no real good way to answer that. What kind of training you get depends on your unit, the warning they got for deployment, when you got to your unit, etc. I came out of AIT, got assigned to a brand new battalion, and was 4 miles from Pakistan 3 months after I got out of AIT.

OTOH, all of the female soldiers in my company spent their entire deployment on Bagram Airfield (poor bastards. Fuck that place, all details all the time).

I'd honestly be surprised if finance Soldiers (for example) got all that much convoy or infantry training, but I'm also sure some company/batt commanders managed to get their soldiers that training.
posted by kavasa at 6:12 PM on March 29, 2011