The Department of the Army for the United States of America is composed of many inter-connecting pieces that subsequently aim in defending the United States of America in foreign or domestic conflicts. The Army is the largest branch in the United States, and its job is to serve and protect the citizens of the United States of America.
The Army is comprised of components and interconnecting branches/military occupations. The components of the US Army are Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guard. These branches are then categorized by the type of service in which they provide to the Army as a whole. Below are the Army branches in their respected types:
- Medical Services Corps
The Medical Service Corps is a special branch of the Army and is one of the branches of the Army Medical Department. Officers of this branch provide administrative, operational, logistical, technical, and scientific support for the Army Medical Department in the accomplishment of its mission ” to conserve the fighting strength.” The Corps is organized into four sections: Pharmacy Supply and Administration (PS&A).
- Aviation
Aviation is a combat arms branch which encompasses 80 percent of the commissioned officer operational flying positions within the Army (less those in Aviation Material Management and Medical Service Corps). Army Aviation is concerned with the accomplishment of the assigned mission to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations. Upon completion of flight training, the newly rated officer can expect leadership positions with aviation units which will be challenging.
- Corps of Engineers
The Corps of Engineers is a Combat Arms Branch which also has combat support and combat service support roles. Engineer officers plan and execute missions relating to engineer support on the battlefield in light, heavy, airborne, and topographic missions. They coordinate and control all facilities and housing support at military installations. Additionally, the engineer officer serves as the Army’s component to the Department of Defense (DOD) team charged with mapping, charting, geodesy, and military geographic responsibilities.
- Chemical Corps
The Chemical Corps encompasses functions which are primarily oriented toward operations, training, scientific development, and acquisition activities in support of nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) defense programs. The Chemical Corps provides the Army with a highly trained corps of NBC defense and operational experts.
- Signal Corps
Signal Corps officers must blend together combat leadership skills and technical proficiency as they plan and manage information systems that support the command and control of the Army’s forces. Signal officer assignments and career opportunities are diverse and challenging. They direct and control the installation, operations, maintenance, and reconfiguration of networks of information systems for theater/tactical, strategic, and sustaining base operations and the operation of the Army portion of the global defense communications systems.
- Military Intelligence Corps
Military Intelligence encompasses the application and integration of all Military Intelligence functions at both the tactical and strategic levels. Officers serving in this specialty plan, conduct, and supervise intelligence collection resources, analysis of the resultant raw intelligence information, and the production and dissemination of finished all-source intelligence in the form of briefings and reports to the ultimate consumer, the commander.
- Military Police Corps
The Military Police Corps encompasses positions concerned with Military Police (MP) support to combat operations, law enforcement, security of U.S. Government resources, criminal investigation, and corrections. The combat support role provides a vital link in our national defense, and the MPs provide the tactical commander with a force that is highly organized, trained, and responsive to the battlefield commander. Military Police also serve as peacekeeping forces in a low-intensity conflict and provide security in war and peace to critical Army facilities and resources.
- Adjunct General’s Corps
Officers in the Adjutant General’s Corps serve at all organization levels of the Army where they plan, develop, and operate the Army’s personnel management support systems: a vital responsibility in both peace and war. Personnel systems include all life cycle functions such as personnel requisitioning, reassignments, evaluations, promotions, awards and decorations, reenlistment, casualty reporting, strength accounting, and replacement operations. Administrative systems management includes courier and postal services. As a member of the Army band, officers coordinate band activities for the command and conduct technical inspections to evaluate the operational status, capability, and proficiency of command bands.
- Finance Corps
All officers commissioned in the Finance Corps (FI) serve in a variety of financial management and leadership positions in today’s Army. The ultimate mission of the FI is to support the soldiers and commanders in the field and provide the Army with expertise concerning all aspects of financial management. Finance officers are required to be both technically and tactically proficient to perform their mission in wartime as well as peacetime. They must continuously develop their professional skills and knowledge in order to stay abreast of evolving doctrine and stay current in the finance and accounting profession.
- Ordnance Corps
The purpose of the Ordnance Corps is to develop, produce, acquire, and support weapons systems, ammunition, missiles and ground mobility material during peace and war in order to provide combat power for the U.S. Army. The Ordnance Branch encompasses all functions related to the life cycle management of its three commodities: tank/automotive material, munitions material, and missile material.
- Quartermaster Corps
The Quartermaster Corps offers a broad spectrum of opportunities. The Quartermaster Corps officer plans and directs the activities of Army units and organizations engaged in the acquisition, receipt, storage, preservation, and issue of equipment, repair parts, fortification/construction material, subsistence, petroleum products, water, and other general supplies.
- Transportation Corps
The Transportation Corps encompasses those positions related to the multi-modal movement of personnel and cargo over land, sea, and air.
- Cyber
U.S. Army Cyber Command integrates and conducts full-spectrum cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, and information operations, ensuring freedom of action for friendly forces in and through the cyber domain and the information environment, while denying the same to our adversaries.
- Infantry
The Infantry encompasses positions concerned with the employment of the combined arms to close with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver in order to destroy or capture him , or repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack. Infantry forces fight dismounted or mounted according to the mobility means provided. They form the nucleus of the Army’s fighting strength around which the other arms and services are grouped.
- Air Defense Artillery
Air Defense Artillery encompasses positions concerned with the employment of a family of Air Defense Artillery weapons in support of military land combat operations and against enemy aircraft and missile attacks. Depending upon the mission, Air Defense Artillery units are found defending the ground-gaining combat arms units or critical units/areas against enemy air attack. When not in combat, Air Defense Artillery units maintain an around-the-clock state of readiness to respond immediately to hostile action.
- Field Artillery
The Field Artillery is the King of Battle. They are sound leaders of soldiers as well as astute managers of the most deadly resources on the modern battlefield. They blend a knowledge of tactics and a technical expertise of many weapons systems to provide all types of fire support to the ground-gaining arms. They are experts in the capabilities of cannons, rockets, missiles, naval gunfire, and close air support.
Special Branches:
- Judge Advocate Generals Corps
The Judge Advocate General’s Corps is a special branch of the Army whose officers are all lawyers. Their duties include all areas of legal practice including criminal law, administrative and civil law, contract law, and international law.
The Educational Delay (Ed Delay) program is designed to produce Active Duty Judge Advocates from current ROTC cadets. The program allows senior year cadets (MS IV) to apply for a commissioning delay in order to attend law school. Cadets granted an Ed Delay are commissioned after graduation and placed in IRR during the duration of law school.
- Army Doctor
There are two different routes for Army ROTC to become a doctor:
- Active duty with an educational delay (or USUHS) OR
- Reserve duty
Active Duty with Educational Delay – Army ROTC
during the fourth year in Army ROTC, a cadet can request an educational delay to continue medical studies before going on active duty. If a cadet receives admission to an accredited medical school or school of osteopathic medicine, the educational delay is almost always granted. Once a candidate commissions as a second lieutenant, he/she would serve in the individual ready reserve (IRR) as he/she completes medical school. Once the officer completes medical school, he/she would do a civilian or military residency and then start serving as a doctor in the active Army.
Once the education delay is granted by ROTC, candidates can apply for the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP). The HPSP scholarship is virtually guaranteed if the candidate has a letter of admission to an accredited medical school.
A cadet can also opt to apply to the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). He/she would serve on active duty as a medical student rather than in the IRR. This is a full scholarship to medical school and not part of the HPSP.
Service payback is four years for the Army ROTC scholarship (three years without the scholarship) and four years for the HPSP. If a cadet goes to USUHS, he/she must serve seven years for the USUHS and four for the ROTC scholarship. The service clock for either starts once the doctor completes residency.
Reserve Duty – Army ROTC
During the fourth year in Army ROTC, the candidate would designate that he/she wants reserve duty (National Guard or Reserve). The officer would serve in the Guard or Reserve while in medical school and in residency under the designation 00E67 (med student) Once residency is completed, the doctor would serve in the Guard or Reserve as a doctor.
Service payback is eight years for the Army ROTC scholarship but this can be served concurrently while in medical school and residency as a 00E67.
ROTC Reserve officers attending medical school can apply for the Health Care Professional Loan Repayment Program (HPLRP) loan repayment assistance—up to $250,000 for certain specialties—by agreeing to up to a seven-year service commitment with the Guard ($40,000 per year for six years and $10,000 the seventh year, with a $250,000 lifetime cap). Payback for this scholarship begins at the end of residency.
You can learn more about Army ROTC with our scholarship guide.
- Chaplain Corps
The Chaplains Branch is a special branch which has the primary mission to perform or provide for comprehensive religious support for soldiers and their family members in war and peace. Chaplains assist commanders in facilitating the right to free exercise of religion for all personnel. Chaplains are commissioned officers and accredited clergy endorsed by a recognized denomination or faith group for the military ministry.