You are absolutely correct. But that's what
they called us. I didn't like it and thought it was misleading. Engineers actually designed things but please don't diminish what we did. All my colleagues were all trained by the military in electronics. Sophisticated stuff. Four of us were Navy, two were Marines, four Army, and three Air Force. Most were trained for avionic stuff. One Army guy was actually trained as a biomed from day one and spent 3 years in Vietnam. He was our go to guy. I was a sonar technician/operator, one was a marine gas turbine mechanic, one a fire control tech, and all the rest were aviation related stuff. Electronics all work the same. I was a lab specialist and at first the Med Techs would have to tell what wasn't working or what it was suppost to do. Then I could fix it. By the end of my career it was the other way around and 90% of the problems were operator error! I felt very satisfied what I did.