Imagine this, you’re downrange taking heavy SAF from the enemy and you want to conduct a call for fire but your radio goes out. You call for a commo guy but no one responds and you being an 11B don’t know the first thing about fixing radios. Problems of that nature may not happen often but they have the potential to jeopardize any mission. Soldiers need to be able to cover down whenever a soldier is removed from the fight, for us to really be a force on the battlefield. We can’t stop operations because we don’t have a proficient individual in a certain field.
In the battlefield everyone is primarily a soldier, no matter what your job title says. Being a soldier first is just as important as being able to perform the basics of the other MOS’s that you work with. Each soldier needs to perform his MOS’s as expected, for us to be successful in our mission. If a commander needs something done on the battlefield that is very vital to the mission but he lacks the personal to do it then he may call on a soldier with no training in that MOS, possibly leading to mission failure.
Having the ability to perform multiple MOS’s won’t only benefit you on the battlefield. Many soldiers find the transition from the army back into the civilian world difficult for many reasons. One of those reasons being is that it is difficult to find work with our economy being in the weak state that it is in. Having the basic skills for multiple tasks may put you ahead of someone with a degree in the civilian world. Doing a job proficiently is more important than being qualified. If you have multiple job skills and you are very knowledgeable and can perform proficiently then you are more likely to get hired then someone straight out of high school.
Having rotations within your unit where one or two members at a time from different troops switch for a week and at the end of the week are put under evaluation to see if they’re ready to perform the task on the battlefield. Another way to train...