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Concept
Military personnel
Summary
Military personnel or military service members are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, coast guard, air force, and space force,), rank (officer, non-commissioned officer, or enlisted recruit), and their military task when deployed on operations and on exercise.
Those who serve in a typical large ground or land force are soldiers, this branch is the army. Those who serve in seagoing forces are seamen or sailors, and their branch is a navy or coast guard. Naval infantry or marines serve both on land and at sea, and their branch is the marine corps. In the 20th century, the development of powered flight aircraft prompted the development of air forces, serviced by airmen. The United States Space Force service members are known as guardians.
Designated leaders of military personnel are officers. These include commissioned officers, warrant officers and non-commissioned officers. For naval forces, non-commissioned officers are referred to as petty officers.
Military personnel may be conscripted (recruited by compulsion under the law) or recruited by attracting civilians to join the armed forces. Most personnel at the start of their military career are young adults. For example, in 2013 the average age of a United States Army soldier beginning initial training was 20.7 years.
Most personnel are male. The proportion of female personnel varies internationally; for example, it is approximately 3% in India, 10% in the UK, 13% in Sweden, 16% in the U.S., and 27% in South Africa. Many state armed forces that recruit women ban them from ground close-quarters combat roles.
Personnel who join as officers tend to be upwardly mobile young adults from age 18. Most enlisted personnel have a childhood background of relative socio-economic deprivation. For example, after the US suspended conscription in 1973, "the military disproportionately attracted African American men, men from lower-status socioeconomic backgrounds, men who had been in nonacademic high school programs, and men whose high school grades tended to be low".
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Ontological neighbourhood
Related concepts (16)
Military recruitment
Military recruitment refers to the activity of attracting people to, and selecting them for, military training and employment. Women in the military by countryWomen in the militaryTransgender people and military service and Women in combat Across the world, a large majority of recruits to state armed forces and non-state armed groups are male. The proportion of female personnel varies internationally; for example, it is approximately 3% in India, 10% in the UK, 13% in Sweden, 16% in the US, and 27% in South Africa.
Air force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviation or naval aviation units. Typically, air forces are responsible for gaining control of the air, carrying out strategic and tactical bombing missions, and providing support to land and naval forces often in the form of aerial reconnaissance and close air support.
Military exercise
A military exercise, training exercise, or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations. Military exercises are conducted to explore the effects of warfare or test tactics and strategies without actual combat. They also ensure the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base.