issuing military pistols

In the first Gulf War I was a Corporal in the USMC. I was an electronics technician in an air wing radar unit.We were not combat arms types, but were deployed within 10k of the Kuwait border with Saudi Arabia.

I was issued a rifle before I left Kaneohe MCAS. I was issued 240 rounds within minutes of deplaning from the C5 that transported me from Hawaii to Saudi. I carried that rifle and ammo for 6 months. Day and night. I was never issued a pistol. Staff NCO's, Officers and certain people (like truck drivers) for whom a rifle was impractical were issued pistols.

When I was with the main unit in a large compound we were responsible for our own security. When I was part of a detached group that took a small radar to an area that was a blind spot for larger radars we had some infantry (USMC) in the area who we worked with for perimeter security. They did not seem to conform to the same handgun issuing rules as several Marines of my rank and below were carrying sidearms in addition to their rifles. But not all. I don't recall asking why. I just assumed it was an infantry thing.
 
Thanks, you folks have been a wealth of knowledge. What sidearms were you shooting and did you like them at the time? As gun people now/then was it something you took seriously or something that needed to be done? I apologize for jumping around its hard to get my thoughts centered on this one.
 
USGI 1911a1, I liked it then and I like it now. They don't get muddy and slimmy enough to quit on you. It saved my life more then once.

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In the USMC these days, SNCO's, officers, and people with special billets get pistols. I'm a LCpl. and carry an M4 and a m9, but I also work in a small team and our AO's vary. If your unit has the sidearms in the armory, they will pick who gets to carry a sidearm based on on rank and job. Most of the SNCO's in my unit have them so they don't have to carry a rifle around the FOB, though they still have a rifle. In our unit, my platoon and one other company are the only ones who get a sidearm no matter of the rank or billet as we are the only ones who leave the wire and work in small teams. Most grunts won't get them, with the exception of the officers, snipers/pigs, and the corpsman attached to them.

Also, I hate the M9. I'm by no means an amazing shooter with pistols, but the M9 is just one I can't get accustomed to, sadly. I don't want to go back to the 1911's, but would much rather have something else as a personal preference.
 
Besides officers, are any service people allowed to keep or purchase issued side arms when they leave the military?
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Nobody gets to keep or purchase issued weapons, including officers.
 
General officers are given a Pistol when they get their first star.
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Thanks for the correction, I wasn't aware of that. After looking into it I found that they are given the option to purchase their issued pistol when they retire. Learn something new everyday.
 
Officially vs unofficially....

Officially, only the people in certain "slots" get issued pistols. It depends on the unit's Table of Organization. Unofficially, many people (including senior NCOs) who have some pull get pistols, if they want them.

Stateside (garrison) duty, rules are tight, but tend to be relaxed the closer you get to the sharp end.

Official policy is no privately owned pistols carried, ever. However, smart commanders allow combat troops great latitude, when not in garrison.
 
Units receive small arms based on authorized equipment levels in their specific TO&E, as already mentioned. However, what happens to them after that can vary, both with the missions and manning levels at the moment as well as current fads within the military. As also already mentioned, some small arms are apparently never taken out of the box and spend their time locked up in a shipping container when they are deployed.

One trend that might be a little surprising is for rifles or carbines to be issued where pistols are the authorized (and expected) weapon. My son, who sort of followed my path in the army but kept going, in a manner of speaking, from Germany to Iraq, related that sometime after they got to Iraq, they turned in their pistols and everyone got rifles or carbines if they didn't already have one. He was a tanker. Their original authorized weapons were two carbines per tank and each crew member had a pistol. I have a photo of him when they were still in Kuwait with a pistol (in a drop leg holster) and a shotgun. I have no idea how shotguns ended up there. Another curious trend is for soldiers to buy some of their own web gear, which I assume accounts for his holster. When I was in the service, no one would have dreamed of buying their own equipment, unless you "lost" something (meaning someone took it) and you had to replace it.

I spent most of my time in the army overseas in the headquarters company of the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg, Germany. There were a fair number of privately owned weapons kept in the arms room but I don't think anyone was at all interested in using their own stuff. We had a couple of generals on hand and at the time, they were still being issued with pre-war Colt .32 or .380 automatic pistols. We also had machine guns but since were never mobilized as a company or entire division, they were always left in the arms room. Some units in the division were sometimes placed on high alert when there was a war in the Middle East, which seemed to happen with some regularity and there was at least one deployment before I got there. Some units rotated to Berlin, too. There were more US Army troops in Germany than there ever were in Vietnam.
 
Military Sidearms

A) Unit authorization of side arms is prescribe by the units TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment). This document specifies how many of each type of weapon a unit is authorized and to which position it is to be issued. Within these numbers the unit commander can, but usually does not, rearrange the distribution as he determines necessary. To draw additional weapons from ordnance supplies, the Commanding General requests a TOE modification (temporary or permanent) from Army Material Command. I am unsure how far this has to go up the AMC Chain of Command before additional weapons can be issued to the unit. This is done very rarely.

B) Typical TO&E's provide side arms for crew served weapons crews, field medical personnel, unit commanders and staff officers (infantry platoon leaders usually carry rifles while support units may issue side arms to officers), pilots, certain aircrew members, and combat vehicle crewmen.

C) The practice of selling side arms to officers ended at least by the Korean War. I suspect that it ended with the huge influx of Reserve Officers during WWII. Prior to WWII the Armed Forces were much smaller and the officer corps was 95%+ professional career military. Officers of this era were allowed to purchase their side arms. Even during my era, late 60's-70's- early 80's, only General Grade officers were allowed private firearms. That does not mean that it did not happen, just that it was un-authorized. It does however mean that no officer was legally sold his military issue sidearm.

D) Shotguns were TO&E items during my tours with the infantry. They were usually stored in the arms room and issued for specific missions, i.e. point man on a patrol or a prisoner guard detail.
 
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Does anyone know what side arm is issued to a General Grade Officer now?

In my day they switched from the Colt 1908 .380 to a special built Colt Combat Commander. Do they still issued these or did the Army switch to a some from of 9MM for Generals when the M9 Berretta was adopted?
 
Does anyone know what side arm is issued to a General Grade Officer now?
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Berettas. or at least the two friends of mine got Berettas when they got their stars.

A little off topic. When I retired from the Anchorage Police Department, I was allowed to keep my Service Revolver. I was retiring from the National Guard about the same time so I took the letter (giving me the revolver) and showed it to my boss in the Guard, telling him the Guard should follow suite and let me keep my M14 (Issued NM Rifle, I was coaching and shooting for the rifle team at the time). I got thrown out of his office.
 
Another crew that occasionally will get them is turret gunners in convoys... issued so you can get that guy behind you when you can't swing the turret gun around fast enough.
 
Yeah, I got a M-9 as a PFC when my unit deployed. I know my line of reasoning was that as the -203 gunner, I couldn't mount my bayonet if it came down to it. My Platoon Sergeant bought it.

I carried it one of two ways: in a Blackhawk drop down rig when we were outside the wire and was wearing full kit, and a Blackhawk leather shoulder rig with a dual mag pouch inside the wire when I was just wearing ACUs.
 
There is the "Official" TO&E, then there's the "field" way. When I was a company grade officer in the National Guard company commanders and platoon leaders and several of the staff officers carried M-16s-camouflage, blend in, IIRC the Marines have been stricter about insisting officers carry pistols and let their EM do the rifle shooting. In Vietnam the "rules" were a lot looser, I carried an M1911A1 even after I gave up my M-60 when I became and E-5, nobody wanted to take it away from me.
 
A nice story I found regarding the issue of General Officer M9 issue/purchase. Enjoy.

When Gens. Omar N. Bradley, George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower retired, they purchased the pistols they were issued when they were on active duty.

And still today, when general officers retire they can buy the pistols they were issued.

The General Officer Pistol Team, of the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command Rock Island's Weapons Product Support Integration Directorate, oversees the process for the active Army, National Guard and Army Reserve.

The GO Pistol Team has records of issue on the original three by five cards dating back to World War II, said Sid Kemmis, Associate Director, Weapons Support Group.

Title 10, USC Section 2574 allows each active duty general officer to receive a general officer model M9 pistol on loan and purchase it when he or she retires, he explained.

The pistols are special in that they are procured especially for general officers, with serial numbers prefixed with the letters "GO," explained Tara Octaviano, logistics management specialist

Jodie Creen Wesemann, museum technician at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum, said the first General Officer Model RIA M15 .45 caliber pistol produced at the Rock Island Arsenal is in the museum's collection. According to museum records, it was produced in 1972, and is a modified version of the Ithaca Gun Co. M1911A1 made in 1943.

According to "The Colt U.S. General Officers Pistol" by Horace Greeley IV, the pistol's original GO1 serial number was hurriedly changed to GO178 to discourage a visiting dignitary, who asked to see the new pistol, from taking the weapon.

The practice of issuing pistols (the Colt caliber 380 pocket model) to general officers began in 1944 during World War II (Greeley). It was replaced by the shorter-barreled M15 in the 1970s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M15_pistol) followed by the more modern M9 9mm pistol in 1984 (http://tri.army.mil/LC/cs/csi/satoc.htm#M9).

"When a general officer requests a pistol he has to either go through the GOMO office (General Officer Management Office) or come through us with a request to receive the pistol," Octaviano said.

Octaviano then verifies the requester, assigns the pistol and logs the request into a database, which notifies Anniston Army Depot personnel who ship the pistol to the general.

"Because it's a loan, the general needs to confirm annually that it's in his or her possession," said Kemmis. "All of the transactions, which include the purchase request and annual inventory certification, are automated and web based." There are 650 pistols issued according to current records.

"In addition to the pistol they get a flag, belt buckle, holster, magazine, cleaning rod and brush and other accessories," said Kemmis. The pistols cost $497.

Most general officers purchase their pistols when they retire, said Kemmis. "They are general officers after all, and we give them exceptional service. We try to take really good care of them."
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Quote from the quote

When Gens. Omar N. Bradley, George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower retired, they purchased the pistols they were issued when they were on active duty.
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I was not aware that Patton “retired”.
 
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