Why does the Geneva Convention forbid medics from carrying any more than the most basic of self-defense weapons?
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The US Solution to this, given that insurgent groups tend not to give a shit about protected status of medical personnel, has been to create a grey area by giving all combat personnel a bit of medical training and equipment and calling them “Combat Life Savers”. Give every soldier the ability to stabilize an injured comrade, while maintaining full legal combatant status and thus be allowed to be fully armed.
Does it work well in disorganized insurgent warfare? Yes, it seems so. Will it work in organized warfare with another nation? Remains to be seen, but probably not given higher rates of casualties requiring more medical attention and more drastically impacting your units output down range since it’s full rate soldiers playing doctor instead of specialized soldiers.
Combat medic here. We don’t carry crew weapons but we carry rifles and pistols.
Our weapons are for self defense and self defense of the wounded. The weapons are considered defensive and offensive.
Remember a medic has a special place in combat. We are to treat all sides of the conflict. That is why we are not supposed to be fighting in the battle. We are there to assist.
It’s basically a “gentleman’s agreement” for lack of a better term between countries that troops providing medical care to Soldiers may act in self defense, but may not otherwise directly engage in combat. This is basically so that everyone gets to treat their wounded.
There is also an agreement that militaries will provide medical care to wounded or captured enemy Soldiers.
Medics wore distinctive insignia visible at a great distance (a white circle with a red cross inside) at first, in order to mark them as non-combatants. Unfortunately, enemy soldiers began deliberately shooting at Army medics and Navy hospital corpsmen, so they stopped wearing the medic red cross insignia. Today, they dress exactly like combatants for their own protection.
The Army trains their own medics.
The U.S. Navy provides medics to the Marine Corps in the form of hospital corpsmen.
They are members of the U.S. Navy Hospital Corps. All Marines are combatants, so they cannot be medics. Most young Marines consider the corpsmen to be Marines too, and they will defend them anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. “Doc takes care of us, so we take care of Doc.” A good example would be corpsmen who get into some kind of conflict in a bar. (LPT: *Never* pick a fight with a Navy corpsman with Marines present.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_medic#/media/File:Medics-p013020.jpg
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-navy-corpsman-gives-drink-to-a-wounded-marine-in-guam-1944-142214617.html
Before helicopter medevacs (“dust-offs”) were introduced during the Korean war, there were some physicians who went forward with the medics and combat troops. They set up emergency Aid Stations just behind the front lines. Wounded soldiers were first stabilized, sometimes with emergency surgery, then moved back to Battalion Aid Stations and then on to Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, like in the TV show “M.A.S.H.” (The fictional 4077th MASH was based on the real-life 8055th MASH unit in the Korean War, 1950-1953.) Doctors, nurses, religious clergy and civilians are all non-combatants. They are not supposed to carry weapons, and are supposed to treat all wounded soldiers and civilians equally, including enemy soldiers. Medical facilities are guarded and defended by a detachment of regular soldiers who are combatants, not by hospital or aid station personnel. Among other things, they must take charge of any weapons which arrive at the hospital with wounded soldiers.
Medics traditionally use small arms, which means we’re usually armed with a rifle. The average infantryman has the exact same weapon as their combat medic counterpart.
Per the Geneva conventions it’s considered a war crime to fire at a medic (who is clearly wearing Red Cross insignia) that is not taking offensive acts towards the opposing side. The moment a medic shoots at the enemy they lose their protection under the Geneva conventions and are fair game (if you follow the Geneva conventions). In most modern wars medics don’t wear Red Cross insignia, return fire with their infantry counterparts, and are therefore not protected by the Geneva conventions.
Source: Served as a medic in the US Army
I was in Iraq. Every single medic was armed with an m-16 or m-4. The enemy didn’t give a fuck about Geneva conventions. Our medics needed to be armed in the event they were shot at which happened regularly.
So I trained with the Oz overseas deployment team- we are told we cannot carry weapons (which is fine by me!) but also that this now makes us easy targets for kidnap, ransom and robbery…
There is no honor in war.
You gotta remember this was 1949 – how else were they meant to protect against the Medic class becoming OP in generations of video games to come?
Because it also forbids medics from being shot. Therefore there should be no situation where they need to defend themselves.
Additionally because of this ruling all militaries would just start dressing all soldiers as medics to trick their enemies then ambushing them.
Beause it is important that medics are not seen as a threat.
A medic with a gun is someone who can shoot you, which means you might want to shoot them first.
And if *some* medics have guns then you might have to worry that *any* medic you see has a gun, even if it’s not visible. And then you might want to shoot them too.
In order for medics to do their job, people *on eithe side* have to be able to assume that the medic does not constitute a threat.
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