Talk:United States Armed Forces

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2024

I request that U.S. Coast Guard be above the U.S. Space Force on the list of branches as the coast guard has been in existence much longer while the space force is a recent addition to the armed services. 38.122.130.250 (talk) 03:36, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: See the subsection in the article on order of precedence. PianoDan (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Ethnic statistics

The article as no section about the active component demographics. Data as of 31 October 2022 is available at https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2022/11/15/62a2d64b/active-component-demographic-report-october-2022.pdf Non-Hispanic White are 58.2% of the total population (demographics of the United States#Race), and only 50 % of the armed force, but 69 % of the officers. Is there an explanation, for instance unemployed non-white would enlist to get a dangerous job in the Army ? --Wisdood (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Why would demographics be important to this article? The armed forces is supposed to be a cohesive force where everyone works towards the completion of the mission, or at least that is what the DoD line is. It does not matter whether the person next to you is black, white or green when you are in battle. Both your lives depend on the cooperation of the other to get though the situation. I guess one would have to have been in a situation to understand this. To answer you question, I am sure that there have been instances where someone has enlisted in the armed services to find some employment, more money, schooling, travel places or find a challenging job. Some people have been known to enlist in the airborne just for the chance to jump out of perfectly good airplanes... Cuprum17 (talk) 15:21, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Demographics seems important to understanding the composition of the U.S. armed forces. The article should not just be about what "the armed forces is supposed to be" or "what the DoD line is". The extent to which the demographics of the military is similar or dissimilar to the makeup of the country as a whole is relevant (and that is why there is a published report about it). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Women in combat roles

Maybe I haven't read this article and the Women in combat article closely enough, but I have a couple of basic questions. Let's pick the Army, for example. Can a woman join the U.S. Army and choose not to serve in a combat role? Can a man join the U.S. Army and choose not to serve in a combat role? Is there a form that each person fills out to express that choice? If so, what's the name of the form? What percentage of active-duty women and men have expressed a choice not to serve in combat roles? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 05:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

My above questions were deleted within 7 hours by someone who said they were not "discussion of ways to improve the article" and that if someone wants this information, they should "ask a recruiter" for it. I disagree. The question of whether military members can be ordered into combat or not (when they have not explicitly volunteered to be in combat) seems pretty basic. Such information should be provided in the articles that discuss women's service in the U.S. military. This article has a very lengthy section called "Women in the armed forces" that extensively discusses whether women are allowed to voluntarily accept combat positions. The Women in combat article has a similarly lengthy section about the United States that contains similar material, and that other article has a reference to this article that says that this article is the main one that addresses that subject. However, I have not found any mention of whether women who have joined the U.S. military can generally be ordered to serve in combat without volunteering or whether men who have joined the U.S. military can choose not to serve in combat. Combat is a very basic function of a military service, and I believe these articles should contain this information. Perhaps I am missing something. I already acknowledged that I might not have read the articles carefully enough – but I reject the notion that this is not a constructive comment intended to improve the article content. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 14:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Perhaps in my reply to user:Wiswood above I was a bit hasty in my dismissal of the use of demographics in the United States Armed Forces even with a presentation of the demographic breakdown of the various population that make up the armed forces, the statistics do not answer some of the questions posed by you and others. Of course, anyone serving can be ordered into combat in any given situation. It matters not whether you are man or woman. The only exception would be that the armed services accepted your enlistment as a conscientious objector; in which case you would be trained in some specialty that normally does not see combat. If the enlistee's conscience does not allow the use of weapons, they will be allowed to enlist as medics, chaplain's assistants or some other strictly non-combat job. As for those who voluntarily joined and been trained in jobs that could see combat, there is no choice not to serve in combat by the individual. You go and serve where you and your unit are required by higher authority to serve. To allow someone who has been trained for and currently serve in a combat role the choice not to go to combat would be a morale killer for those who did go into combat. Women who have fought for the right to join the combat arms in the past as a move towards equality between the sexes have opened the combat arms to all who wish to serve in that manner. Once they volunteer for the training, they can not back out of a combat assignment. If anyone wants to serve in today's armed services they can volunteer for any job field that they qualify for but once they are trained in that field they are expected to serve where they are assigned. I now see that demographics could improve the article provided that they are presented in a logical and accurate way. I don't see how questions posed by you about volunteers would improve the article. In any case, the questions posed get into philosophical arguments about what is right or wrong in a given situation. Cuprum17 (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

My questions about women in combat roles are a different subject from my comments about demographics that are above in a different discussion section. If I understand your reply correctly, I think some of the material in the article about whether women are allowed to voluntarily serve in combat positions should be rephrased to avoid giving the impression that women are given some opportunity to express a choice about whether they want to serve in combat or not (something different from designation as a conscientious objector). Although your reply said "Of course, anyone serving can be ordered into combat in any given situation", that is not at all an obvious fact when it comes to military service for women. Before the change of policy in 2013 (or was it 2016?), it sounds like women were just not assigned to receive combat training and were not assigned to units that had potential combat missions? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that there needs to be a clarification on the issue of volunteer service by women. You are correct that before a certain date that women were prohibited from serving in certain combat military occupational specialties or units that would typically see combat assignments. Certainly women have served in combat in recent conflicts but I don't know exactly what the official regulations are or which of the armed services permit women to serve in a combat role. The one service that I know that ALL positions are open to women is the Coast Guard and if a Coast Guard cutter served in combat women would be expected to serve without exception. There are currently only very few Coast guard units or cutters that women are not allowed and those are ones where separate berthing facilities are not available. Those cutters are being either modified or retired currently and going forward there will be mixed crews at all cutters and stations. Cuprum17 (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Here's an article that reviews services' progress since the 2016 removal of gender restrictions.[1] Schazjmd (talk) 16:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

BarrelProof, could you quote the sentence(s) you feel are unclear? The article doesn't really say that much about women in combat roles, so I can't figure out what exactly you think needs to be rephrased. Everyone who joins is given the opportunity to indicate their preferences for career field/specialty. (The USAF used to have a guaranteed job option on enlistment, don't know if that's still true or if other services also do so.) Once someone is in the military, anything can change. They can fail technical training and be reassigned to a specialty that wasn't one of their original choices. I think the nuts-and-bolts of how each service manages job and location assignments are too in-the-weeds (and would most likely have to rely on each service's regulations as sources). Schazjmd (talk) 16:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Let's start at the beginning and ignore the content of Women in combat § United States at the moment. Reading from the beginning of United States Armed Forces § Women in the armed forces, before we even get to what I was commenting about above, I see the first six paragraphs talking about instances in which women served or began being allowed to serve in the armed forces. There is basically no mention in those six paragraphs of women not being included in U.S. armed forces or not being allowed in particular roles in the U.S. armed forces. This seems a bit strange to me – it seems like localized exceptions are being described without a more general rule being described. Then the reader encounters the second sentence of the seventh paragraph, which says "The Congressionally mandated prohibition on women in combat places limitations on the pilots' advancement, but ..." This sentence has at least two obvious problems. The first is that it is referring to some prohibition that has not been described, as if the reader should already know that such a prohibition has existed and was established by Congress. What "Congressionally mandated prohibition on women in combat" is it talking about? When was such a prohibition established by Congress? What law is being referred to? Is this something the U.S. Congress put into place without a signature of a president to establish it as federal law? The second is that the word "places" is in the present tense. Is the use of the present tense just an error? Also, when and how did this "Congressionally mandated prohibition" go away? I don't see an answer to that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:06, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Another problem is that the section starts with WWII, when the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard all had women members before then. I agree that the entire section is inadequate and should probably be rewritten completely. Schazjmd (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I've requested an inter-library loan for Women in the Military by Jeanne Holm and Her Cold War by Tanya Roth to get a good overview. Schazjmd (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2024 (UTC)