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The United States Uniformed Services are divided into four different overlapping definitions. There are three Service Branches, four Military Branches, five Armed Services, and seven Uniformed Services. Although the terms may often be used interchangeably depending on the current operational deployment activity or other factors, these are appropriate distinctions in understanding the basic structure in a peacetime perspective and as statutorily defined.
They are divided among four Cabinet-level Secretaries or equivalent that report directly to the President of the United States (POTUS): Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, and the Surgeon General of the United States.
The Secretary of Defense has working directly under them the three Service Secretaries: Army, Air Force, and Navy. Each is administratively responsible for one military branch, with the exception of the Secretary of the Navy, who is also responsible for the US Marine Corps.
The Secretary of Homeland Security (created post-9/11) is responsible for the US Coast Guard, who had perviously been under the Secretary of the Treasury. During wartime, the Coast Guard may be CHOP’d (Change of Operational Control) to the Secretary of the Navy. Individual Navy units are also often CHOP’d to the Coast Guard in support of certain law enforcement-related functions that the Navy is statutorily prohibited from, and the Coast Guard is insufficiently equipped to perform on its own.
The Secretary of Commerce has responsibility for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose focus is on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere. While officially a civilian department, they work with and often rely on Navy and Air Force assets in support of their mission.
The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is the uniformed branch of the USPHS, and is one of two uniformed services that consist only of commissioned officers and has no enlisted or warrant officer ranks (The other being NOAA). Officers of the PHS are classified as noncombatants, unless directed to serve as part of the armed forces by the President or detailed to a service branch of the armed forces.