Engineer Officer

Army.Dad

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My son is commissioning next month on the 12th of August in the Corps of Engineers. He is not a degreed engineer as he is Political Science w/a concentration in Security Studies. My question is, what does a 2nd Lt. Engineer officer do? to specify more on his unit, he will be assigned to a Multi-Bridge company out in Ft. Belvoir (he is in the USAR) I have asked a lot of people what engineers do and all people tell me is that he creates bridges and blows it up.
 
Back in the day the Engineer mission was Mobility, Counter-Mobility, Survivability and Sustainment. Not sure how much that has changed in 20+ years but they are certainly all missions that are critical. As a bridge engineer, he will probably spend most of his time planning and leading soldiers. Most missions will involve recon, movement, actually doing the bridging mission and getting home. As a limited resource, the Pl will probably spend a good amount of time advising the supported unit commander how best to employ his bridging resources and getting the stuff his soldiers need to survive and execute the mission.
 
My son is commissioning next month on the 12th of August in the Corps of Engineers. He is not a degreed engineer as he is Political Science w/a concentration in Security Studies. My question is, what does a 2nd Lt. Engineer officer do? to specify more on his unit, he will be assigned to a Multi-Bridge company out in Ft. Belvoir (he is in the USAR) I have asked a lot of people what engineers do and all people tell me is that he creates bridges and blows it up.

My DS is with the National Guard Multi Role Bridging Unit. He's been with them for 2 yrs now. For most of that time he was a PL for the recon platoon. It was a lot more tactical which he enjoyed. They go out and scout the locations to do the bridging as well as provide security during the bridging operations, they also run up and down the rivers in boats to do scouting. After a while in addition to recon he was the PL for the maintenance and equipment operators platoo
Now he is the units communication officer so all communication from the state to his unit goes thru him.

As far as the bridging operations, they will do fixed bridging as well as the pontoon bridging.

Don't worry about not being an engineer. He will learn the equipment and how it operates. The senior NCO's will help him out. As stated above first and foremost he leads the people under him.

He will be doing paper work like he would with any type of unit.

As with any type of engineering unit, if deployed they could run escorts for other units, do some demolition, or a number of different assignments.
 

Yikes...Can't believe that info is on the goarmy website.

There is no requirement to take the ASVAB, it lists search and rescue as a responsibility, and not sure why they would list bonuses on a page describing Officer jobs.

Fishpart had a good answer for you.

Here's a better link.
That is a very good video. (My son's admissions RC at West Point from a couple years ago is in it). Gives a nice perspective. This is currently on the top of my sons branch choice list.
 
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