Big bump there!
If you need a full size battle rifle, you should have called arty 15 minutes ago. Our soldiers don't take territory; the consolidate our hold on it. If you're not doing it that way...you're doing it wrong.
Just so, though less than a tenth of our troops are actual combat arms soldiers; the rest are part of the support and logistics *tail* that keeps their operations moving. And those lesser lights need to be equipped at least as well and trained in at least the basics of combat operations, should such unplanned events come their way, as they did for Private Jessica Lynch and her comrades in arms and for any number of surprised REMFs some 60 years previously at a number of little Belgian towns that included ones named Bastogne...and Malmedy.
To do any less is to make them easy targets for rear-area raids and vertical envelopment or partisan/terrorist attacks. They may not fight like well-trained and experienced infantrymen, but if suddenly thrust into that role, they'll at least have a chance- if they have a usable tool for doing so. And on occasion, they might just surprise the hell out of the *other people.*
-archy-/-