АҚШ Салауаттылық қызметінің униформалы күштері

Federal uniformed service
the uniformed service
Along with the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is one of two uniformed services that consist only of commissioned officers and has no enlisted or warrant officer ranks, although warrant officers have been authorized for use within the service. Officers of the commissioned corps are classified as noncombatants, unless directed to serve as part of the military by the president or detailed to a service branch of the military. Members of the commissioned corps wear uniforms modeled after the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard, with special Public Health Service Commissioned Corps insignia, and hold naval ranks equivalent to officers of the Navy and Coast Guard, along with corresponding in service medical titles. Commissioned corps officers typically receive their commissions through the commissioned corps's direct commissioning program. As with its parent division, the Public Health Service, the commissioned corps is under the direction of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The commissioned corps is led by the surgeon general, who holds the rank of vice admiral (O 9). The surgeon general reports directly to the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health. The assistant secretary for health may be appointed to the rank of admiral (O 10) if they are also a serving uniformed officer of the commissioned corps. Today, the commissioned corps is under the United States Public Health Service (PHS), a major agency now of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), established by Congress in 1979 and 1980. It was previously established in 1953 as the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), and it is still led by the surgeon general. The commissioned corps allocates officers to all of the other uniformed services depending on the health or medical needs of each service. By the 1980s, the wearing of uniforms on a day to day basis was not consistently practiced. In 1987, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop advocated for consistent use of the uniform while on duty, although he allowed individual agencies to determine their own requirements. In 2004, Surgeon General Richard Carmona made uniforms compulsory whenever officers were on duty. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established a Ready Reserve Corps for the PHSCC, but technical errors in the legislation prevented it from being implemented until the errors were corrected in the 2020 CARES Act.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by President Barack Obama on 23 March 2010, established the Ready Reserve Corps of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps as the new surge capacity for the U. S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. The ready reserve corps is intended to fulfill the need for additional commissioned personnel on short notice to assist Regular Corps personnel for both routine public health and emergency response missions during involuntary calls to active duty. The Ready Reserve Corps replaced the former Reserve Corps, which had active and inactive components. All former Reserve Corps officers who were serving on extended active duty on 23 March 2010 were converted to Regular Corps officers. The same legislation also abolished the Inactive Reserve Corps (IRC) on 23 March 2010, and consequently the commissions of the existing 10,000 commissioned corps IRC officers. The IRC had consisted of inactive reservists voluntarily activating to provide over 3,000 active duty days annually for routine and public health emergencies including during Hurricane Katrina and other emergency response missions, and in providing surge capacity for numerous shortages in isolated and hardship underserved areas. Inactive reservists also played roles in the humanitarian shipboard training missions with other uniformed services. Funding was finally approved through the CARES Act, passed on March 18, 2020, in response to the COVID 19 pandemic. The first officers were expected to be commissioned in the first half of 2021.

Flag officers of the Commissioned Corps are authorized to use rank flags. When the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health is a Commissioned Corps admiral, he or she is authorized use of the flag of the Assistant Secretary for Health as a four star rank flag. The Commissioned Corps vice admiral serving as Surgeon General of the United States uses the flag of the Surgeon General as a three star rank flag, while the Commissioned Corps rear admiral serving as deputy surgeon general uses the deputy surgeon general's flag as a two star rank flag. Other Commissioned Corps rear admirals use a two star assistant surgeon general flag, and Commissioned Corps officers at the rank of rear admiral (lower half) use a one star assistant surgeon general flag.

Commissioned Corps officers wear uniforms similar to those of the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard with special Public Health Service insignia. Their service dress blues, summer whites, and service khakis are modeled after the Navy's, and their operational dress uniform was modeled after the Coast Guard's. When attached to another uniformed service, a Commissioned Corps officer is subject to the grooming standards of that service for uniform appearance. Because of the close relationship between the Commissioned Corps and the Coast Guard, a Commissioned Corps officer on assignment with the Coast Guard is required to wear the same service uniforms as commissioned Coast Guard officers, although still wearing the insignia of the Commissioned Corps to identify them.