What do they do for the military? Do they fight? Do they get paid? Are they outsourced musicians or are they actually part of the military? Also, why?
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As a Turkish infantry officer I think I’m the person to answer this question. Ottoman military band Mehteran was world’s first military band after all.
We know that militaries used drums to coordinate as late as 2500 years ago since Sun Tzu talks about that in Art of War. Ottomans used Mehteran for the same reason, different marches used to convey orders like attack, retreat etc. It’s also used to boost morale for your soldiers and decrease it for your enemy. Ottomans are known to siege a city and let the Mehteran play day and night for months to annoy them.
Today a military band is mostly ceremonial. Militaries depend on tradition like nowhere else. It was a tradition to march with a band, so we still march with a band. They have a very importnant function though : They organize formations. If there’s one of those big drums in the band your every single left step should match every single DUMM that big drum plays. So everyone walks the same speed and same step at the same time. It just looks and sounds better.
And yes. They are regular part of the military, I haven’t seen any band member on the front lines, they get paid and have ranks, authority etc. just like everyone else.
EDIT : Oh I remembered another function, social. We send our bands all around the world to play in different social functions. Since they are all professional musicians (at least in Turkish military) they can play a huge variety of songs and not just marches. I’ve seen the Air Force Band play jazz and stuff.
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