Soldiers of all armies of the world have always used to do the familiar gesture of his right hand only, Except there were only Russian soldiers.
Military greeting with hands by PRESENT to a headdress - a gesture, universal for almost all modern armies. In one form or another it exists in Russia, USA, France, China, Nigeria. Honor may be given as a full palm, and two or three fingers, It may be given continuously or abruptly, regulated, and many other nuances. But everyone has greeted one thing in common - they are always, absolutely always give my right hand.
A US military medic James Scott at the meeting with the recruits responded to an interesting question: whether a fighter can, who lost his right hand and in the service, salute with his left hand? Here it should be noted, that in our days in the US Army soldiers can serve, using a prosthesis. The Soviet army also had such precedents, eg, the well-known flying ace Alex Maresiev, flown in a fighter plane without both legs, that did not prevent him to shoot down opponents. Less well known is an artillery officer Vasily Petrov, who fought in the war without brushes of both arms. As seen, the situation is quite common.
so here, answering the question, Officer Scott said, that with a prosthesis right hand fighter salutes prosthesis, if he is for any reason absent, A soldier does not use statutory greeting. American soldiers will never give a military salute with his left hand. The same applies to all the other armies of the world, even if you look back into the past.
There is only one exception - the Imperial Russian Army. AT 1808 , the minister of war took Aleksey Arakcheyev. He actively took up the reform of the army and introduced many useful innovations, which helped Russia in 1812 year victory over Napoleon. But there was among them one controversial initiative - for a short period of time in the Russian army conducted military salute with his left hand.
This innovation very few people had in mind, and in 1810 year, When Arakcheev left office, all returned to their seats, and Russian soldiers again began to salute with his right hand. Since then, the world of such experiments nobody spent.
