Guns?

[Septimusseverus]

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Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I have no prior service so I'm still working through different military regs/customs.

Do medical officers get firearms? It would make sense for all officers to be issued personal arms, but I've never heard details on this.

 

[denali]

I prefer my sabre.

 

[aklark]

You can buy your own.

You'd only be issued one when you deploy.

 

[pgg]

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I have no prior service so I'm still working through different military regs/customs.

Do medical officers get firearms? It would make sense for all officers to be issued personal arms, but I've never heard details on this.

While in the United States, you may periodically be issued one for training purposes, which you will turn in at the end of the training event. This will usually be a Beretta M9 pistol (9mm), but sometimes a M4 or M16 rifle. Weapons aren't issued to you during your normal periods of work as a physician.

You are, of course, able to buy your own gun(s), subject to the laws of the state you're stationed in. There are rules governing their storage and transport if you live on base. If you live off base, you will never bring your personally owned firearms on base, unless it's specifically to and from a range open for non-official use. You will never be authorized to use a personally owned firearm for military training events or deployments.

While deployed to a dangerous area, you will be issued a M9. It's not unheard of for medical personnel to be issued rifles, but it's somewhat unusual, given the whole medical personnel / Geneva convention / "defensive" weapons thing.

 

[StarboardMD]

Outside of BOLC, I've only ever had an M16 for qualifying at the range (issued the morning of, turned in that evening). Any time I've been expected to carry a weapon anywhere for more than a few hours, I've always been issued my assigned M9. I think most people have heard too many (probably true) stories about doctors losing their weapons to trust them with anything that doesn't stay physically strapped to their bodies at all times when not in use. In AMEDD BOLC we had to carry M16s and you would frequently find them getting left behind in the porta-potties...

 

[UltimateDO]

I prefer my sabre.

Only if I am sporting my dress cape....

 

[UltimateDO]

While in the United States, you may periodically be issued one for training purposes, which you will turn in at the end of the training event. This will usually be a Beretta M9 pistol (9mm), but sometimes a M4 or M16 rifle. Weapons aren't issued to you during your normal periods of work as a physician.

You are, of course, able to buy your own gun(s), subject to the laws of the state you're stationed in. There are rules governing their storage and transport if you live on base. If you live off base, you will never bring your personally owned firearms on base, unless it's specifically to and from a range open for non-official use. You will never be authorized to use a personally owned firearm for military training events or deployments.

While deployed to a dangerous area, you will be issued a M9. It's not unheard of for medical personnel to be issued rifles, but it's somewhat unusual, given the whole medical personnel / Geneva convention / "defensive" weapons thing.

As above you will only get one while you are at the range while CONUS. When downrange you will at a minimum get a M9. I was issued, carried and used both my M9 and M4 when mounted and dismounted. Totally against geneva convention but due to lack of warm bodies I have had to man a M2 on a CROW and airguard with a 240B on convoys occasionally. My medics let me play with the Barrett and the M110 on our COP range. If you are with the joes, show some curiosity and you will likely be rewarded.

 

[pgg]

due to lack of warm bodies I have had to man a M2 on a CROW and airguard with a 240B on convoys occasionally.

To interested parties reading, who are or will be deployed as military physicians, take heed and mentally prepare yourselves to put your foot down and say NO if this is ever asked of you.

The above happens for one of two reasons
1) a motivated physician who for some reason WANTS to do that stuff, who also has a bad or inattentive commander who allows it, or
2) a bad commander who thinks physicians are just super-duper-medics who are just warm bodies to fill holes in the line

Bad line commanders will order and lean on their subordinates to do inappropriate things. There can be a lot of pressure to go along with it. Remember you have something of a parallel chain of command on the medical side; somewhere above you there is an O5 or O6 regimental or division surgeon who has the ear of a general and they CAN put a stop to this in a hurry. There is a respectful and appropriate way to go about this. Sure, your CO won't like it. That's OK; it's not your job to be his friend. Do the right thing and put a stop to it.

A line commander who puts a physician in a turret is a ****ing idiot and he needs to be recalibrated for the good of EVERYONE in his charge. The only time a "lack of warm bodies" justifies putting a physician on a machine gun or grenade launcher in the field is if the "warm body" who was in that turret a minute ago is laying in the dirt gradually assuming room temperature and there are some remaining enemies who need to be shot.

 

[UltimateDO]

Agreed...me pushing outside the wire was a personal decision since my guys were getting hurt and being flown POI to the role 3 at KAF. Nothing was coming to our aid station. I can definitively say that there are two guys who got hurt on a patrol that I was on who would not be alive now had there been 68W in my place. Yes that may sound egotistical but I had two 68W with me who said they were in over their heads. There was support for me going out in this role from the O-6 level down the chain (including the 4th BCT and 82nd Div Surgeons)

 

[backrow]

I think manning the offensive weapons was more the problem than going on the patrols. But that's just my opinion.

Granted I don't think the enemy would provide much in the way of Geneva protections to medical personnel in today's battlefield I still have serious issues when a US physician blatantly disregards their half of the equation.

 

[Homunculus]

Agreed...me pushing outside the wire was a personal decision since my guys were getting hurt and being flown POI to the role 3 at KAF. Nothing was coming to our aid station. I can definitively say that there are two guys who got hurt on a patrol that I was on who would not be alive now had there been 68W in my place. Yes that may sound egotistical but I had two 68W with me who said they were in over their heads. There was support for me going out in this role from the O-6 level down the chain (including the 4th BCT and 82nd Div Surgeons)

i don't think most commanders would turn down a doc volunteering to go out-- but manning crew served weapons is the equivalent of malpractice. no harm, no foul, but thank god/allah/flying spaghetti monster you didn't have some mechanical malfunction or need accurate fire somewhere. talk about a congressional hearing-- whether true or not, if someone was killed and someone found out a doctor was providing cover fire, heads would roll.

--your friendly neighborhood i'll stick with the 9 caveman

 

[pgg]

my guys were getting hurt and being flown POI to the role 3 at KAF.

Just curious, when were you there? I was at the KAF R3 most of 2013.

I know the feeling; in 2005-6 I was in Iraq and out with the forward BAS during a couple of large operations. I saw a handful of walking wounded and a few injured civilians; meanwhile at least a dozen CASEVAC flights went over my head to the FRSS. I didn't do much except get shot at for no good reason.

But when we were planning the next major op, I told my CO that I'd be better off staying at the FRSS, and he agreed. I didn't tell him that I or his Marines would be better off if I was even CLOSER to the combat, and he wouldn't have put me there.


Glad it worked out and you came home safe, but we have a multitude of inexpensively-trained medics/Corpsmen who are capable (or should be capable) of handling 99% of care in the field. Putting a scarce, expensive doctor in that role adds an incrementally superior capability at best. There really isn't much more field care that I (a board certified anesthesiologist who's as comfortable with codes and crises as just about anyone), can do that a good Corpsman can't.

I think manning the offensive weapons was more the problem than going on the patrols. But that's just my opinion.

Even patrols are kind of pushing it. Outside of the special ops secret squirrel units, IMO the only time a doctor belongs outside the wire is for a specific, defined medical purpose, e.g. nearby support during an operation. Doctors don't belong on patrols or convoys.

And there's a fine line between a defensive and offensive weapon ... I'd gladly carry an M4 outside the wire as it's arguably far superior to a M9, and would not agree that doing so would require waiving my Geneva status as a noncombatant. (The defensive gun in my bedroom is an AR15.) The grenade launcher in the turret, that's kind of a stretch as a defensive weapon.

 

[UltimateDO]

Yes, I was in the wrong manning any crew served, I acknowledge that now. I was in Panjawei / Zharay from Dec 11 to Dec 12. We had very few GSW....lots and lots of dismounted IED strikes which were way more catastrophic than most of the 68W are trained for. They also tend to cause multiple casualties so we were plussing up medics for any dismounted patrols. Anything company sized or larger had either me or my PA going out and anything BN sized allowed us to recruit from the BSB to take extra PAs / medics. The brigade surgeon and his entourage came out of anything brigade sized or larger. They were unfortunately well utilized across the AOR. I cannot describe how helpless I felt with the guys I was living beside who got hurt were flying over my head while I was sitting there with my thumb up my ass in my aid station.