"this is a warzone not an amusement park"

[Astrojanitor]

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/2...pers-dq/?hpt=T2

 

I get the argument somewhat, but certainly hate the implication of the soldiers in Afghanistan being on vacation. An amusement park? What a horrible thing to say...especially coming from the source. I've mentioned on these boards before how my fiancee is about to deploy to Afghanistan in June for 12 months. Can't say I support the language announcing the decision--this reads like Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall is actively trying to make deployment more difficult. You can argue the intent behind the action until you are blue in the face--I'm only commenting on the language used in the announcement.

 

A sad fact is 20% of active military is on some kind of anti-depressant or mood stabilizing medication (including my fiancee). It seems to me having these tastes of home in the main bases in Afghanistan can do much in keeping our soldiers calm and relaxed. Simply being able to get a burger and catch a movie can recharge the batteries in dramatic ways. Hall claims they are unable to get supplies to combat outposts (I've heard many stories about outposts running out of food). Scares the hell out of me that we can put a man on the moon but not a dairy queen in Kandahar.

[DC Tom]

Scares the hell out of me that we can put a man on the moon but not a dairy queen in Kandahar.

 

Of course, we only put a man on the moon for three days at a time. If you were opening a DQ for three days every six months in Kandahar, that would be a LOT easier than keeping it open year round. Afghanistan is remote as hell; not many places on the planet are harder to get to (the South Pole, deep rain forests, far northern Australia...that's about it), and it's doubly so given it's surrounded by people who don't want to help us much.

 

Hall has a good point: if it's interfering with the mission proper, it's an unaffordable luxury.

 

And let's just nevermind the fact that Halliburton providing food services is a crime, but Burger King providing them is a goddamned necessity...

[PushthePile]

http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/2...pers-dq/?hpt=T2

 

I get the argument somewhat, but certainly hate the implication of the soldiers in Afghanistan being on vacation. An amusement park? What a horrible thing to say...especially coming from the source. I've mentioned on these boards before how my fiancee is about to deploy to Afghanistan in June for 12 months. Can't say I support the language announcing the decision--this reads like Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall is actively trying to make deployment more difficult. You can argue the intent behind the action until you are blue in the face--I'm only commenting on the language used in the announcement.

 

A sad fact is 20% of active military is on some kind of anti-depressant or mood stabilizing medication (including my fiancee). It seems to me having these tastes of home in the main bases in Afghanistan can do much in keeping our soldiers calm and relaxed. Simply being able to get a burger and catch a movie can recharge the batteries in dramatic ways. Hall claims they are unable to get supplies to combat outposts (I've heard many stories about outposts running out of food). Scares the hell out of me that we can put a man on the moon but not a dairy queen in Kandahar.

If getting rid of dairy queens and burger kings mean getting the grunts and combat personnel supplied better, then who the hell cares. From my experience the individuals who had all day to watch movies and eat whoppers never came close to being in harm's way. My unit went without running water and electricity for 6 months. Getting resupplied with ammo, water, and chow was awfully difficult sometimes.

 

.... pardon me if I don't feel bad for all the POGs who are missing out on chicken nuggets and vanilla shakes. Trust me a Sergeant Major isn't too concerned with that crap either.

[Astrojanitor]

Of course, we only put a man on the moon for three days at a time. If you were opening a DQ for three days every six months in Kandahar, that would be a LOT easier than keeping it open year round. Afghanistan is remote as hell; not many places on the planet are harder to get to (the South Pole, deep rain forests, far northern Australia...that's about it), and it's doubly so given it's surrounded by people who don't want to help us much.

 

Hall has a good point: if it's interfering with the mission proper, it's an unaffordable luxury.

 

And let's just nevermind the fact that Halliburton providing food services is a crime, but Burger King providing them is a goddamned necessity...

 

That why I stated by saying I get his argument. My final comment there was facetious, I'm concerned as to how we cannot both run the operative successfully while offering a few luxuries to over worked and over stressed servicemen.

 

And don't even get me started on Halliburton. My fiancee has a job in the motor pool. For that she gets paid about $20K. Overseas that job is sold to subcontractors for $80K. Instead of doing the job she trained 6 months for, In Afghanistan is will be off looking for IEDs...a job she is currently in the middle of a four day training session for. Soldiers jobs are sold for four times what they are paid while people like my fiancee are forced into doing a job they did not sign up for and do not have the experience or training to do well. We wonder why there is such an uptick in PTSD, suicide and mood stabilizing medication. The waste, fraud and stupidity that has come from privatizing the war has been dramatic. http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/

[Alaska Darin]

Leave the Dairy Queens and Burger Kings. Bring home the troops instead.

[Astrojanitor]

Leave the Dairy Queens and Burger Kings. Bring home the troops instead.

 

now run for something so I can vote for you

[IDBillzFan]

now run for something so I can vote for you

All he needs now is support from conner, Big Cat and Fan in San Diego, and he might just go for it.

[DC Tom]

That why I stated by saying I get his argument. My final comment there was facetious, I'm concerned as to how we cannot both run the operative successfully while offering a few luxuries to over worked and over stressed servicemen.

 

And don't even get me started on Halliburton. My fiancee has a job in the motor pool. For that she gets paid about $20K. Overseas that job is sold to subcontractors for $80K. Instead of doing the job she trained 6 months for, In Afghanistan is will be off looking for IEDs...a job she is currently in the middle of a four day training session for. Soldiers jobs are sold for four times what they are paid while people like my fiancee are forced into doing a job they did not sign up for and do not have the experience or training to do well. We wonder why there is such an uptick in PTSD, suicide and mood stabilizing medication. The waste, fraud and stupidity that has come from privatizing the war has been dramatic. http://www.wartimecontracting.gov/

 

The upside of contracting out services is that 1) when you don't need them (i.e. in peace time) you don't need to pay for them, and 2) it theoretically allows a stronger force structure, since you're subbing out the support tasks and can therefore train a larger portion of your force as combat soldiers rather than REMFs. As a practical matter, of course, it doesn't necessarily work that way.

 

Another point: the cost structure of soldiers vs. contractors isn't limited to payroll. The Army (or whoever your fiancee enlisted with) incurs plenty of other costs (training, for example) keeping people on the rolls that they don't with contractors. The actual cost difference is probably more on the order of 1.5:1 rather than 4:1 - still inefficient, but not as much as you suggest.

 

I don't agree with subcontracting out war, though. All those "wartime" tasks that aren't performed at the same level in peacetime? That's what the National Guard is for.

 

And a four-day course on IEDs? I guess on the positive side, she won't be overconfident. (And it's a truism in the Army that they put you in a completely different job than what you trained for. I knew the officer in charge of mass graves registration in Iraq - in civilian life, he was a homocide prosecutor. Absolutely perfect for the job in Iraq. So after a month the Army moved him to immigration control ).

[Alaska Darin]

In technical fields, military contractors get paid significantly more money because they're significantly more competent. Is there corruption and graft in the process or exceptions to the rule? Absolutely.

 

At the end of the day, the military is broken - like pretty much everything the government is in charge of. Donald Rumsfelt has been demonized pretty significantly but he had a decent plan for overhauling it. It basically got killed by Senior Officers and Senior Government employees because it would have killed off a ton of the bureaucracy that gives those people the cushy, high paying jobs they all end up with.

[Magox]

In technical fields, military contractors get paid significantly more money because they're significantly more competent. Is there corruption and graft in the process or exceptions to the rule? Absolutely.

 

At the end of the day, the military is broken - like pretty much everything the government is in charge of. Donald Rumsfelt has been demonized pretty significantly but he had a decent plan for overhauling it. It basically got killed by Senior Officers and Senior Government employees because it would have killed off a ton of the bureaucracy that gives those people the cushy, high paying jobs they all end up with.

Too bad about Rumsfeld, always liked the guy, but he did colossally miscalculate Iraqi insurgency.

[DC Tom]

Too bad about Rumsfeld, always liked the guy, but he did colossally miscalculate Iraqi insurgency.

 

His current office is a few floors below my wife's. He still, to this day, asks everyone he meets what they think about the invasion of Iraq.

 

Guy's pretty much a doucheus baggus maximus.

[Magox]

doucheus baggus maximus.

Wasn't he in some low budget gladiator movie?

[PushthePile]

The upside of contracting out services is that 1) when you don't need them (i.e. in peace time) you don't need to pay for them, and 2) it theoretically allows a stronger force structure, since you're subbing out the support tasks and can therefore train a larger portion of your force as combat soldiers rather than REMFs. As a practical matter, of course, it doesn't necessarily work that way.

 

Another point: the cost structure of soldiers vs. contractors isn't limited to payroll. The Army (or whoever your fiancee enlisted with) incurs plenty of other costs (training, for example) keeping people on the rolls that they don't with contractors. The actual cost difference is probably more on the order of 1.5:1 rather than 4:1 - still inefficient, but not as much as you suggest.

 

I don't agree with subcontracting out war, though. All those "wartime" tasks that aren't performed at the same level in peacetime? That's what the National Guard is for.

And a four-day course on IEDs? I guess on the positive side, she won't be overconfident. (And it's a truism in the Army that they put you in a completely different job than what you trained for. I knew the officer in charge of mass graves registration in Iraq - in civilian life, he was a homocide prosecutor. Absolutely perfect for the job in Iraq. So after a month the Army moved him to immigration control ).

I agree with this for the most part but subcontracting out war does have it's perks.

 

-Contractors have the advantage of much looser ROEs. Some operations call for action the public doesn't like and for support purposes it's easier to let contractors take the fall.

 

-Contractors are better equipped to handle certain operations. They spend alot of time training for specific missions and their actual equipment is better for very specific missions.

 

-Contractors can get killed left and right, and it is hardly a blip on the minds of Americans.

[/dev/null]

Guy's pretty much a doucheus baggus maximus.

 

I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called doucheus baggus maximus

[Fan in San Diego]

Leave the Dairy Queens and Burger Kings. Bring home the troops instead.

 

For once I agree with you on something.

[Alaska Darin]

For once I agree with you on something.

Which is hypocritical given your stance on Health Care. The government is the biggest reason Health Care is expensive. Your solution is more involvement. The government is the biggest reason there's a war in Afghanistan and it's going poorly. Your solution is to get them out of there.