Platoon guide

A platoon guide is a position, but not a rank, in the United States Army and Marine Corps. The guide sets the direction and cadence of the march.[1]

In an infantry platoon the platoon guide is a non commissioned officer (by Table of Organization [TO] a sergeant in the US Marine Corps) who acts as an assistant platoon sergeant. The platoon guide is responsible for ensuring the platoon is supplied with ammunition and rations[2] and, in combat operations, may be tasked by the platoon commander to take temporary charge of casualties or enemy prisoners of war/detainees until they are evacuated to the rear.

In a basic training unit, the platoon guide is the senior recruit in the platoon chosen by his or her Drill Instructor as a liaison between the Drill Instructor and the platoon and the recruit leadership of the platoon.[3]

The platoon guide also carries the platoon guidon. This is derived from 19th-century guide sergeants, who carried marker flags to denote the flanks of an infantry regiment, and was applied to smaller units as tactics changed.

Notes

  1. ↑ http://navyrotc.berkeley.edu/docs/Drill%20Manual%202.pdf
  2. ↑ p.41 Rogal, William W. Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Beyond: A Mud Marine's Memoir of the Pacific Island War McFarland, 01/07/2010
  3. ↑ p.29 Hitchcock Thomas One of the Few, the Proud, the Marines Dorrance Publishing, 18/06/2010
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