Jack of Harts

I will note that the United States Army got a major chance to shine during The War. They brought the largest tanks, mechs, and aircraft to the various fields of battle, from reserves stockpiled for generations. They constituted the core of trained soldiers that defended Western Alliance worlds across colonized space, and they fought on more Chinese and Russian outposts and colonies than most people even knew existed. It was the Army that conducted the ground invasion and occupation of the Hyades Cluster after Alliance warships cleared the orbitals. Space Marines like the Cowboys may have gotten good press and media deals, but it was the average GI Joe who brought the heavy end of the hammer down on our enemies. Or maybe they were a Jose, a Jay, or a Jacy depending on the culture they came from. They volunteered to serve from every American State and colony, and they fought for two decades straight under alien suns to secure America’s continued survival.

An interesting point about the Marine Corps of Jack’s time, is that they were often the first to test designs that the Army wanted to build. They deployed and optimized them for Marine uses, and their tweaks often found their way back to the Army version. Marine hands tested both the Pattons and Katos before the Army deployed those tanks and mechs in large numbers. And the Marines absolutely fell in love with the Army’s Warthog. A massive gun strapped onto a mech that could transform into an aircraft capable of deploying and operating in space? It was a Marine’s wet dream, and they totally designed their own Cerberus to fill a similar role. The Marines did not care where an effective weapon came from. If they could use it, they wanted it. Even if laws said they couldn’t buy them from the source. The Marines were very good at circumventing laws like that, to the surprise of not a single person who knew the misguided individuals in question.

The United States Army of Jack’s younger days was primarily responsible for protecting America’s District of Columbia and the various colonies and territories scattered throughout the cosmos. It was a fundamentally defensive organization in practice, while it celebrated great offensives of the past and trained for them from time to time. Often compared to the old Coast Guard by the other services, the Army was simply not the most prestigious of military services. Though they continually designed and purchased new small arms, tanks, mechs, or aircraft every year, in a neverending quest to be at the tip of the technological spear whenever the time came for them to really cut loose. I will note for the record that while most Army aircraft could enter space, and many were actually capable of interplanetary flight, the Army classified them as aircraft since they were designed primarily to work in planetary environments. Also, if they were spacecraft, they would be the province of the Space Force, and the Army couldn’t have that. So the Army never owned or operated spacecraft. Even when they were operating in space.