OK, educate me here regarding pistols and the US military.
 

One thing I've never fully understood about the military is why only officers above a certain rank (Sergeant, I believe, though I might be wrong) are issued the M9/92FS or M11/P228. Don't all recruits and trainees go through weapons familarization and training with handguns and rifles/carbines alike? And if so, then why not issue them those weapons from the start, especially if they're going to be sent into a combat zone? Or do they and I'm just reading wrongly into things here?

A buddy of mine who enlisted in the army during the mid-nineties did say they were taught how to use the M9 at boot camp.

It depends on what your Military Occupational Specialty is. I'm straight up Infantry and when I went to boot the only thing we were taught about the M9 is that it sucks.

nope... the issuance of a sidearm doesn't have anything to do with rank really, more with your position.

P.S. Sergeant's aren't officers, they're enlisted

In the Canadian military, pistols are issued to infantry officers, signallers, MPs, aircrew and naval boarding parties. Overseas they often issue them to people who are working mostly on a large base so they can fulfill the requirement for always being armed without constantly carrying around a rifle.

OK...so if you're a front-line infantry soldier, then you're getting a M9 and M4/M16, regardless of whether you're enlisted or NCO?

Generally no. Infantry don't really have much use for pistols, it's just one more thing they have to carry when they have too much already. The purpose of infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy, pistols aren't very useful for that.

And not all infantry would get the M4.

You do realize that the OP specifically asked about the U.S. Military, right? :) Though interesting, answers based on the Canadian military will be confusing. From what I've gleaned over the years, there are tons of little details that are different and very specific to the country and it's military.

Well, based on my fairly extensive experience working with the US Army, the scale of issues for pistols is pretty much the same. The only US infanteers I saw carrying pistols in Afghanistan were commissioned officers.

In our army the pistols are issued to sub-officers, commandos and second line troops.