I do get a bit tired of reading that "...if I were in the Army, I would never carry a 9mm..." or "I would carry a .45 because it kills people at 20 miles and blows the pieces over a 10 acre field and the 9mm won't hurt an anemic flea and...." or "...in WWII my uncle carried xxx and it was OK and he killed 25,000 Japanese Banzai fighters with a Kabar knife...."
Well, kiddies, if you were old enough to be in the Army (or any other branch of the armed forces) you would darned well carry what you were issued and nothing else. Period. And if you were caught with an unauthorized weapon or ammunition, you could get 10 years in Leavenworth to complain about all the deficiencies of the issue stuff.
And this is not WWII; the rules are different and if you ever grow up enough to be in the service, and choose not to obey the rules, see above about military prison; never been there, but I have heard it is not pleasant.
Honestly, I hope that you kiddies out there continue to like guns and shooting, and that none of you ever have to serve in combat. I was lucky enough to do my military service in peacetime, and am just as glad. Being a hero sounds like a lot of fun, until you see guys with no legs or a coffin with the flag on it. Everybody is just sure that he will dish it out, and never get hurt - it doesn't work that way. Good guys do lose, and sometimes they lose their lives. And the caliber of your gun won't matter much when an IED lets go under you.
Jim
You CAN carry different gear. Depends on your unit, but you do need the CO's signature. There is a form you have to fill out. Our Stryker unit did it on a case by case basis. Several guys took their own rifles, including an M1A Whitefeather, and I regularly used a G17 instead of the M9. We were also allowed to modify our weapons. Then again, they wanted to try different stuff with the new Strykery units and treated us different than a regular infantry unit. We'd get new guys from other units and they had a hard time fitting in sometimes, especially the "it does what it's told!" types.
Still, they had to fire NATO rounds. Some guys were gonna take .45's they were okay, until they found out our unit didn't order any ammo for it and they couldn't take any ammo with them, just the pistol. Some guys wanted to take, of course, the .44 mags, and all that junk and then the CO kind of ended it unless he kind of knew you or knew about you. Mostly the SDMs were the ones that got to pick gear because they got the short end of the stick, they got stuck with plain jane M4's and had to buy their own match uppers if they wanted them. Now some get SR25's! God how we begged for those!
Times have changed, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this stuff has been halted again --I was in during spring '01 to summer '04. Obviously something happened between those dates. Anyway, we got a new Brigade CO, and when he came in he wanted to do everything the old way --which totally derailed two years of training and the whole point of the Stryker unit's flexibility and strength. Glad I got out the month he came in.
Believe it or not, the Ranger units were MUCH more strict about stuff like this than our unit, but they do have better and newer equipment on a whole, and they do have a greater array if I'm not mistaken. SF units, I've been in their arms rooms and they have just about everything. It is really cool. And yeah, they do use 1911's. Some are the original WWII pistols too, but most that carry a 1911 that I know of carried their own. They'd get the gunsmith in their arms room to tweak them though (their arms room came with not only more stuff, cool stuff, but with two gunsmiths and a full machine shop!).
BTW, I was a Stryker soldier, an SDM an later SDM instructor, which is how I got to know some of those Rangers and SF guys, but I mostly went to the SF compound to see the gunsmith --he helped us out A LOT.
