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