This is a list of weapons served individually by the United States armed forces, sorted by type and current level of use. This list does not include a number of weapons used by Special Operations Forces, as their specific equipment is mostly unknown and some Special Operations Forces weapons are only used by a few operators.
While the general understanding is that crew-served weapons require more than one person to operate them, there are important exceptions in the case of both squad automatic weapons (SAW) and sniper rifles. Within the Table of Organization and Equipment for both the United States Army and the U.S. Marine Corps, these two classes of weapons are understood to be crew-served, as the operator of the weapon (identified as a sniper or as a SAW gunner) has an assistant, who carries additional ammunition and associated equipment, acts as a spotter, and is also fully qualified in the operation of the weapon. Hence, the above weapons are listed under List of crew-served weapons of the U.S. armed forces. See also Equipment of the United States Coast Guard for a more detailed list of their small arms.
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“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“God should not be called an individual substance, since the principal of individuation is matter.”
—Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)
“When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“He could pause in his cross-examination, look at a man, projecting his face forward by degrees as he did so, in a manner which would crush any false witness who was not armed with triple courage at his breast,—and, alas! not unfrequently a witness who was not false.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“There will be no greater burden on our generation than to organize the forces of liberty in our time in order to make our quest of a new freedom for America.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)