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Medics
- Thread starter thull
- Start date
Looking into an alternate career choice?
Marines have Navy Corpsman assigned to fulfill the role of combat first aid. There are no Marine medical officers in any capacity. All of our medical and chaplain support comes from the Navy, the idea being that nayone who is a noncombatant per the Geneva Conventions will not be a Marine.
I dont know the exact training for the Navy Corpsman but is is fairly extensive. There are comabt lifesaving courses that some of the grunts take to be able to help the Corpsman out but that is a secondary role to that of trigger puller.
I dont know the exact training for the Navy Corpsman but is is fairly extensive. There are comabt lifesaving courses that some of the grunts take to be able to help the Corpsman out but that is a secondary role to that of trigger puller.
Maybe I'm confused, but don't Marines have JAG officers? Aren't they non-combatant?
Very true. Funny how Geneva conventions and UN decisions go out the window with our enemies, yet we still follow them to the letter (or so it seems).
I take it to mean that JAG officers go through TBS and are combat ready just like any other marine in the ranks?
thull
Well-Known Member
Thanks, Skid. Was considering an alternate career path as back up, but I know I want to be an officer and a pilot first. Medic/Combat medic is really appealing to me in many ways though. FMRAM, don't get your hopes up quite yet..
Funny how Geneva conventions and UN decisions go out the window with our enemies, yet we still follow them to the letter (or so it seems).
Can o' worms here but...All agreements in warfare short of the total destruction of your opponent (read "Jus in bello") are matters of conveniance...pure and simple. If a combatant sees significant advantage in dispensing with a political agreement in the face of superior or assymetric military force...they will.
It has always been so (as history will show), and likely always will be.
Concur, although the cultural differences which can influence those decisions are interesting to me. Take two countries in WWII, Germany and Japan. Both advanced, civilized nations, yet German POW treatment was relatively benign (assuming your name wasn't Moishe), while the Japanese camps were some of the worst ever seen. I wonder what the factors are that play into that?
Brett
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Germans have a similar cultural outlook. (compared to British & American, versus Japanese)
In Japanese culture, death in war was an honor, and capture/surrender was a dishonor of the highest order.
Which explains their contemptuous treatment (at best) of POW's. Not justifies, but explains.
In Japanese culture, death in war was an honor, and capture/surrender was a dishonor of the highest order.
Which explains their contemptuous treatment (at best) of POW's. Not justifies, but explains.
Nice recovery there..
But seriously. I remember a story on the History Channel about a group of airmen POWs in a German camp who were treated quite poorly (it was a moishe oriented camp). Then a Luftwaffe officer came for some sort of status update or inspection and the airmen got into formation, were drilling and when the Luftwaffe officer walked by they all stood at attention, the CO approached the officer, saluted and explained who they were and they were quickly transferred to a regular POW camp with other Americans and were treated rather well, considering where they'd been. Interesting to see good POW treatment from the Germans..:icon_craz
I think MasterBates got this one pretty much right. The topic interests me as well. Turn the card around though and an even more interesting example presents itself. Why did the US intern the Japanese and not the Germans? Why did US propaganda tend to aggressively dehumanize (literally) the Japanese?
http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/students/propaganda/rat.jpg
Sure did...and have historically as well. Can't help but think that a stage of racial amalgamation is a selective preferential (or at least differential) value of one race to another. Japanese disdain for the Chinese... American resistance to Chinese immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...nativist movements targeting western European immigrants in the middle 19th century...It seems that in order for an organized society to accept a new ethnic minority, that minority must be "replaced" by another one to collectively loathe.
Big point is that the issue isn't simply confined to warfare...the bigger sociological question is equally interesting and germaine.
A) In a majority white (Aryan...?) populace, Asians are going to stand out more, thus any negative "attention" will be amplified. Even if it begins on a subconcious or irrational level.
Going out on a limb here.
B) Our fight, as a state, was more immediate with the Japanese. Yes, we chose to to deal with Hitler first for strategic reasons, but the Japanese were the prime agitators (and I don't just mean Pearl Harbor)
Resources, balance of power (colonial borders), Naval might; these were arguably more Pacific issues and in a way much closer to home for Americans.