Why does the Geneva Convention forbid medics from carrying any more than the most basic of self-defense weapons?
In: 10147
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.
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