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> Seems like we should just get rid of the names and everyone is a part of the "U.S. Military" There are some real differences between and within the different

> Seems like we should just get rid of the names and everyone is a part of the "U.S. Military" There are some real differences between and within the different single Services (Land, Air and Martitime), many of these differences exist for functional reasons (consider s/w devs, testers and ops). Forcing everyone into the same uniform doesn't make the differences go away. The Canadians tried this and reverted back after several years [0]. It turns out that what's important is to to ensure that operations are commanded Jointly, even if the forces are generated separately. It's also important to ensure jointness in training, e.g. for littoral ops and air/land integration, so that people know what to expect when they come together. Many countries rediscover the need for jointness the hard way, when the different components are forced to integrate during a war. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_the_Canadian_Armed_Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_the_Canadian_Ar...

Faark 7y ago
I don't think the parent was even talking about actually integrating organizations, but just building a shared identity. That starts with a name. A lot of googling showed there is actually a word for that: "United States Armed Forces". I don't remember it being used much in US media. At best in technically correct news articles, but I doubtful to have heard it in movies. Even the word being plural might make it hard for people to identify as such. The Wikipedia page doesn't even list an acronym, with USAF already being taken... We in germany have a "Bundeswehr". There obviously are separate branches and what not. I'm actually not familiar with the internals, since we from the public usually think of the military as a single entity. Doesn't matter if a trainee dies on a ship, a barrack has problems with nazi tokens or fighter jets colliding and dropping out of the sky during training, each of those events makes me think bad about our military in general (and sadly are not made up). So yeah, why not strengthen a joint identity?
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Identity doesn't improve combat effectiveness. The Air Force doesn't need to share the Army's motivated esprit d'corps because most of them will sit at a desk or work as mechanics. > We in germany have a "Bundeswehr". There obviously are separate branches and what not. I'm actually not familiar with the internals, since we from the public usually think of the military as a single entity. So you're making a point about copying the Bundeswehr but don't actually know how the BW is set up? Everything you described already exists in the US: the Department of Defense (and, to some degree, NATO). They're the overarching coordinating civilian department that runs the military. But the US military is HUGE and each individual US military service is larger than most other countries combined militaries. Having some sort of combined bootcamp is nice, but as someone else mentioned, the Canadians already tried that and gave up on the idea. The hyper-fit Marines have a completely different lifestyle than an Airforce mechanic who will fix radars 13 hours a day -- the mechanic can get away with a 6 week "basic" training and then sent off to mechanic school, while the USMC grunt needs to have that discipline worked into them, and there is no way to do that except the hard way.
ceejayoz 7y ago
> The Canadians tried this and reverted back after several years. From the linked source, this appears to overstate the situation. > On 16 August 2011 the three environmental commands of the Canadian Armed Forces were renamed to reflect the names of the original historical armed services... The unified command structure of the Canadian Armed Forces was not altered by this change.

Faark 7y ago

I don't think the parent was even talking about actually integrating organizations, but just building a shared identity. That starts with a name. A lot of googling showed there is actually a word for that: "United States Armed Forces". I don't remember it being used much in US media. At best in technically correct news articles, but I doubtful to have heard it in movies. Even the word being plural might make it hard for people to identify as such. The Wikipedia page doesn't even list an acronym, with USAF already being taken... We in germany have a "Bundeswehr". There obviously are separate branches and what not. I'm actually not familiar with the internals, since we from the public usually think of the military as a single entity. Doesn't matter if a trainee dies on a ship, a barrack has problems with nazi tokens or fighter jets colliding and dropping out of the sky during training, each of those events makes me think bad about our military in general (and sadly are not made up). So yeah, why not strengthen a joint identity?

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Identity doesn't improve combat effectiveness. The Air Force doesn't need to share the Army's motivated esprit d'corps because most of them will sit at a desk or work as mechanics. > We in germany have a "Bundeswehr". There obviously are separate branches and what not. I'm actually not familiar with the internals, since we from the public usually think of the military as a single entity. So you're making a point about copying the Bundeswehr but don't actually know how the BW is set up? Everything you described already exists in the US: the Department of Defense (and, to some degree, NATO). They're the overarching coordinating civilian department that runs the military. But the US military is HUGE and each individual US military service is larger than most other countries combined militaries. Having some sort of combined bootcamp is nice, but as someone else mentioned, the Canadians already tried that and gave up on the idea. The hyper-fit Marines have a completely different lifestyle than an Airforce mechanic who will fix radars 13 hours a day -- the mechanic can get away with a 6 week "basic" training and then sent off to mechanic school, while the USMC grunt needs to have that discipline worked into them, and there is no way to do that except the hard way.

ceejayoz 7y ago

> The Canadians tried this and reverted back after several years. From the linked source, this appears to overstate the situation. > On 16 August 2011 the three environmental commands of the Canadian Armed Forces were renamed to reflect the names of the original historical armed services... The unified command structure of the Canadian Armed Forces was not altered by this change.