>AHA - Ammunition Holding Area
>APO - Army Post Office
>(APO) AP - Asia Pacific
>Army - A dangerous job that takes me away from the ppl I love
>BTRY - Battery
>Regt - Regiment
>BN - Battalion
>Charlie - the phonetic C, eg Charlie Battery
>Div - Division
>DivArty - Division Artillery, my brigade
>FA - Field Artillery
>Field Artillery - see explinations.
>ICBM - see explinations
>King of Battle - a reference to Field Artillery
>Line Unit/Line Battery - see explination
>PSB - Personel Support Battalion, paper pushers
>PLT - Platoon
>POG - Person Other than Grunt
>Queen of Battle - a reference to the Infantry
High to Low (as per 2ID)
- Department of Defense
- Department of the Army
Army - 8th (US) Army
Division - 2nd Infantry Div
Brigade - Division Artillery
Regiment - 38th Field Artillery Regiment
Battalion - 1st Battalion
Battery - Charlie Battery
Platoon - Support
Section - 1st Ammunition
This is the breakdown for me. Commonly the Regiment and the Battalion are combined other wise you would have confusion about all the 1st Battalions. So, my unit is 1st Battalion 38th FA Regt or 1-38 for short.
Field Artillery: Field Artillery is the branch of the US Army that provides supporting fires to the forward combat units, such as the infantry. There are 2 types of Artillery, 'tube' and 'rocket'. Tube's are the big guns and 'Rocket Artillery" is rockets and missiles ~ this does not include ICBMs (stratigic), but can include tactical nuclear weapons. Artillery's Colors are Silver and 'Artillery Red'
Infantry: Infantry is the branch of the Army that are foot soldiers. When you think of an "army man" you are most likely thinking of an infantrymen. All US Soldiers are Infantry first. However, the Infantry branch is 'advanced infantry' - as in they can stop bullets better. The color of the infantry is Sky Blue (supposedly because God love's the infantry)
ICBM: Inter-Contenental Ballistic Missile : When you think of a nuclear bomb, this is an ICBM, these are giant missiles that carry multiple nuclear warheads that are launched from silo's. SLBMs are the submarine version. These are Stratigic missiles/weapons.
Line Battery (or unit) : A 'Line' unit refers to the (US) Civil War concept of lines of infantry. A line unit has a combat mission - meaning they will see combat, whereas a support unit would not be meant to see combat. I am in a line unit, however, one battery in my BN is not a line unit - because they are radars.
There are 2 pay scales and classes of Soldiers in the US Army - 'officer' and 'enlisted'. I am enlisted, meaning I 'enlisted" into the US Army
From highest to lowest here are US Army Ranks & grades
Grade - Rank
E9 - Sergeant Major of the Army - SMA (Only 1)
E8 - (Command) Sergeant Major CSM/SM
E7 - 1st Sergeant - 1SG
E7 - Sergeant First Class - SFC
E6 - Staff Sergeant - SSG
E5 - Sergeant - SGT
E4 - Corporal - CPL
E4 - Specialist - SPC
E3 - Private First Class - PFC
E2 - Private - PV2
E1 - Private - PV1/PVT
In bold is every rank I have achieved. As of March 31, 2005 I am a PFC (again).
This section to come later.