Army organazation

I thought I would do a quick explanation on how the Army is organized as I know most folks are confused by it. Currently I am serving in a company. Usually a company consists of 4-5 platoons. So to lay it all out here is how it goes:


A squad = 6-8 Soldiers
A Platoon = 4-5 Squads
A company = 4-5 Platoons
A battalion = 4-6 Companies
A brigade = 3 Battalions
A Division = 3-5 Brigades


Squad members consist of Privates and specialists E-1 through E-4
A squad is lead by an E-5 or E-6 Sergeant
A platoon is lead by an E-7 Sergeant and a 1st or 2nd Lieutenant
A company is lead by a Captain and an E-9 First Sergeant
A battalion is lead by a Lieutenant Colonel and an E-9 Command Sergeant Major
A division is lead by a General & many other officers



Usually when you are in a company you are part of a battalion which has 4-6 companies. The companies are listed by the phonetic alphabet. So in a battalion with 5 companies you would have a Headquarters company then Alpha company, Bravo Company, Charlie Company, Delta Company. To give an example in Michigan we have an infantry battalion called the 125th Infantry Battalion. There are 125th units spread throughout Michigan. There is 125th Headquarters company in Flint, Alpha company out of Detroit, Bravo company in Saginaw, Charlie company in Wyoming and Delta company in Big Rapids. A brigade that consists of 3 Battalions is recognized by numbers. I will use the first unit I served in as an example. On my first enlistment I served with 1/505th Parachute Infantry Battalion. So basically because there are three battalions in a Brigade we had the 1/505th, 2/505th and the 3/505th. So when someone says they are in 2nd squad, 3rd platoon, Charlie company of the 1/505th, 82nd Airborne Division you know what unit they are in.

The company I serve in is considered a special unit because of the type of work we do and because we are pretty self sufficient because we have our own Headquarters and communications platoons integral to our company. Usually those sections are a separate company. The plus side to this is that we are fairly self sufficient, the downside is that we do not have much star power as the highest ranked officer we have is a captain. Usually this is not a problem when we are at home in Michigan. The problem becomes apparent when we deploy as we get assigned to work for someone in theatre. It is usually not a big deal unless you get assigned to work for someone that is horrible to work for which was the situation we found ourselves in here in Iraq when our parent unit changed.

When you come overseas to a war zone you get assigned to a bigger organization. When we first got here we worked for the 6/9 Cavalry. They were pretty cool to work for; they assigned us our battle space (the area in Iraq that we would be responsible to patrol) told us what they wanted us to accomplish then left us alone to do our job. They left for home in December and were replaced by the 3-73 Cavalry, I cannot put into words at this time how much this parent unit has sucked. Stories of these $@###!!!&&^%%% will surely be sprinkled into future blog entry’s.