"Odd Jobs From the World War II Military " Topic

"Click on the History Channel or open up a high school textbook, and you might end up concluding that World War II was exclusively won by troops and generals on the frontlines, and the wills and whims of national figureheads like Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin.

The reality is—of course—much more complex, with generalists and specialists engaging in important battles to win wars of information, communication, infrastructure, and technology. Sometimes this meant storming the beaches of Normandy, and sometimes this meant, say, drafting posters to school soldiers on the dangers of venereal disease. With that in mind, here are ten of the oddest, most interesting jobs American soldiers took on during World War II, lifted directly from the United States' 1944 Military Occupational Classification guide …"
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Amicalement
Armand

And for the record, those old WW2 military training films are a lot more entertaining than the ones I sat through in 2000-'06!

When I write training stuff these days (hey, I'm an HR type, gotta write training for something), I stick to the WW2 rules, where apparently the rule of thumb was that the training you laugh at is the training that you remember!

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

The job of working with pigeons was the only odd job. The others were very routine and some like the bandsmen are still a mos slot today.
Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, some guys were assigned to play baseball or basketball every day. A head baseball and basketball coach that I worked with had such an assignment.
Every job you can imagine had to be done and prior to the 1970s they were done by enlisted men rather than the contract civilians of today's army.

Though if a war went hot, you would see those jobs revert back to enlisted. One of the most unusual jobs that I worked with in the Quartermaster Corps was Grave Registration.

Anything you can think of had to be done which is why for every fighter you had four guys supporting him.

Yes, unlike we see on TV or in wargames, etc. … Many troops were in a support functions of all types as opposed to being "trigger pullers".

E.g. all US ARMY officers spend more time in staff positions than combat leadership positions. As Rudy and I know.