Joint and combined operations are the wave of the future. So what are they?

In milspeak, joint refers to having members from more than one service: Army and Marines, Soldiers and Sailors, or some other combination. Combined talks about having members from more than one nation, like American and Canadian soldiers. Both joint and combined are possible at the same time and are quite common in contingency operations around the world, from counter-terrorism missions to disaster relief efforts.

Naturally, this is a complicating factor. There is an old military joke. Each service is tasked with securing a building. The Army closes the gates at night. The Navy sweeps, mops, polishes the floors and empties the trash cans. The Air Force purchases the building, land, and all associated rights. Marines dig into fighting positions, set up weapons with interlocking fields of fire, and begin construction of obstacles. There is more than a grain of truth in this. Each service has its own way of doing things and when they find themselves working together, each service member who gets caught up in this situation has lessons to learn about what they do and don’t make sense of.

Some are obvious. Soldiers will tend to call any sergeant, whether they’re first sergeant, sergeant major, or some other type, “sergeant.” The Marines refuse to do this and will always use the full title. Marines who have never encountered this before have been known to be annoyed by this disrespect.

There are attempts to solve this problem using traditional Department of Defense methods. This means producing manuals that define words, how each service understands them, and lessons on operations between services.

In practice, practice works best. When Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, and Marines work together, they learn how other services behave and how they expect things to get done. This can be as simple as picking up bodies to pick up litter along the way to something as complex as how each service gets its junior soldiers promoted.

As is typical, it often falls to senior NCOs to handle the intricate details. Senior NCOs meet to identify and solve problems. They will then relay this result up their respective chains of command so everyone knows what to do.

The matter is much more complex when other nations are involved. Problems start out big and only grow. It may be something that is taken for granted, such as the ability of radios to broadcast on the same frequencies or the availability of enough translators. The problems of multiple translations, where military technical jargon is translated into one language, so that one interpreter can speak to the other, who then translates into a third language for the other military force, can only be imagined by those who have not experienced. Again, the only real solution is exposure and training. Figuring out something as simple as when to greet someone whose rank you can’t identify can be quite a challenge in a multinational operation, but on the other hand, you may occasionally gain access to an Italian diner.