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Medics with Large Caliber / Crew Served Weapons
This is your JAG speaking (again):
See: "The Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in the Armed Forces in the Field" August 12, 1949 Commonly known as the First Geneva Convention; soldiers are generally much more familiar with the Third Geneva Convention (relative to the treatment of prisoners of war).
See: Chapter III, Article 21:
The protection [from attack] to which fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside of their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy ...
Article 22:
The following conditions shall not be considered as depriving a medical unit or establishment of the protection guarenteed by Article 19:
(1) That the personnel of the unit or establishment are armed, and that they use the arms in their own defense, or of that of the wounded and sick in their charge.
(2) That, in the absence of armed orderlies, the unit is protected by picket or sentries or by an escort.
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And so the position of the United States Army is that medical personnel may carry side arms (pistols) for their immediate personal defense and the defense of their patients. The use of large caliber/crew-served weapons is generally considered beyond the scope of "immediate personnel defense."
Unless the medical personnel are abusing their protected status ("hiding behind the Red Cross") the use of a medic in a soldier's role, for example, on a watch tower, even if armed with an M60 / M2 machine gun, is lawful, but may cause the medic to lose his protected status as a non-combatant, (meaning the bad guys can shoot him without committing war crime). In other words, it may cost him the protections of the First Convention (protected medical personnel) but does not cost the medic his rights to the Third Convention as a prisoner of war if captured.
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