William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Let's exclude the non-combat and non-reconnaissance troops, the air force and navy for a while.

For line-of-sight-to-threat army troops the special requirement is military discipline.



Other than that there are some slightly special requirements (firearms safety, explosives safety, secrecy, psychological stress), which have equivalents in select civilian jobs.
Gefechtsdisziplin has only remote equivalents in civilian jobs, such as some professional divers (doing welding works underwater in teams, for example), some firefighters (I wouldn't add police raid and hostage rescue teams).


note: Combat does not demand that you don't cheat on your wife. It may demand that no ill-controlled long hair creates gaps in your NBC protection, though.

You sound like the Army trying to justify why combat awards should only be given to Soldiers in combat positions. Sorry, but my clerks ran to the bunkers from the same rockets that landed in my FOB every week. You need to go downrange.

Don't think those engineers, mechanics, and cooks in all those civilian equivalents had to put up with indirect fire on a regular basis.