I offer up my thoughts on how to approach the problem in two steps:
- Identify every member of the military* who has not received combat pay** for any of the last 10 years that we have been at war.
- Once these people have been identified, fire them. If they are flag officers, fire them twice.
Reward the warriors.
* Who has at least 10 years service
** Meaning "imminent danger pay" or submarine pay and/or whatever AF missileers get.
Eagle 1:
ReplyDeleteWhile I concur with the basic idea, you are a little tough on, say, the oceanographers, or the support and engineering specialties who labor in anonymous obscurity, moving from one obscure and largely thankless (and danger pay ineligible) job in the bowels of a grey ship with a white number to another, with brief tours in a 75 year old hangar or an equally venerable warehouse three gates in down the unmarked road into the pine trees, or some ant farm looking rent-a-office tower with its own DC subway stop.
Remember, you only hear about the ones who screw up the design, don't price check the toilet seat quote, or get the wrong part number in the allowance list, so you order a spark plug and get an XXL eggbeater.
Warriors need somebody in the Bat Cave, changing the oil on the Bat Mobiles and stocking rechargable batteries for the homing modules on the Bat-a-rang or Robin's night vision goggles.
Personnel Command corridor commandos, well, for them, that's an excellent suggestion.
That makes too much sense and far too short. Your idea is doomed.... unless you put it on powerpoint.
ReplyDeleteI agree with anonymous above... this plan has no nuance. The complete absence of loopholes with which to reward favored special interest groups is also troubling.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there will be any number of special groups who will come forward. However, unless they can prove that membership in that group made it impossible for them to deploy into a combat zone, then the loophole is closed.
ReplyDeleteAnd the post was my powerpoint.
I don't don't why, but the following comment, made some time this morning by an "Anonymous" seems to have gone missing:
ReplyDelete"
Eagle 1:
While I concur with the basic idea, you are a little tough on, say, the oceanographers, or the support and engineering specialties who labor in anonymous obscurity, moving from one obscure and largely thankless (and danger pay ineligible) job in the bowels of a grey ship with a white number to another, with brief tours in a 75 year old hangar or an equally venerable warehouse three gates in down the unmarked road into the pine trees, or some ant farm looking rent-a-office tower with its own DC subway stop.
Remember, you only hear about the ones who screw up the design, don't price check the toilet seat quote, or get the wrong part number in the allowance list, so you order a spark plug and get an XXL eggbeater.
Warriors need somebody in the Bat Cave, changing the oil on the Bat Mobiles and stocking rechargable batteries for the homing modules on the Bat-a-rang or Robin's night vision goggles.
Personnel Command corridor commandos, well, for them, that's an excellent suggestion. "
All of which says "it's the other guys who need to be shot."
ReplyDeleteAnd where are the combat oceanographers of yesteryear, anyway?
ReplyDeleteSome of the people in the "bat cave" need a little sunlight.
I post the following for a friend:
ReplyDeleteOnce again it is not the number of people! It is a clearly defined MISSION and sufficient trained and equipped soldiers (all the forces) to successfully and overwhelmingly perform that MISSION. Isolated talk of too many people or too few people is meaningless unless the narrative is measured against mission requirements.
I do agree that the non-combatant chickenshits need to be immediately redeployed to the Obama land of the unemployed!
What about the combat support people like MSC mariners who only collect combat pay when a War Zone is declared? They spend 85% of their time underway outside declared war zones, but obviously needed.
ReplyDeleteShouldn't impact the civmars, one way or another, sinc they are civil service or contractors, rather than uniformed military.
ReplyDeleteStaffs would be a great way to start, if somebody is on a staff and hasn't been to sea, deployed with a unit (CBs et al) or deployed operationally with a squadron, they're too far detached from the day to day reality to provide useful input. Any Fleet or other numbered command that is strictly admin in nature should be disbanded and it's fundtions rolled into an operational command (eg. numbered fleets without ships).
We're approaching the point where we have more flag officers than ships. this is ludicrous and is more typical of some third world operation where all the officers are related to the president-for-life than a fighting force.
I'll agree with Cdr Salamander that we have far too many SES billets on the civilian side. The program started as a way to bring in expertise to solve particular problems with a short term influx of specialized talent. It now comes across as more of a patronage scheme.
As far as putting the uniformed folks on some kind of TSP retirement program, I've noticed that it wasn't good enough for elected and appointed officials, so why is it a good idea for people that put it on the line?
When I was young and serving in the Middle East the last thing I wanted/needed was a superannuated Navy Captain with no responsibilities and too much authority swanning around. Old MIDEASTFOR did quite well with one two star and one 06 COS. They in turn were kept hopping because they had to get the daily long range schedule out updated twice a day with a miniscule staff. In other words, too busy to bother us working types much. I'll bet a nickle that if we polled the working types on the front if they want more senior grades out there to lead stuff they'd admit that they'd prefer half the number they currently have. And the officers are least harmful in my superannuated opinion because the only really menacing mission killers I ever met were the top 3 enlisted ranks on the ROAD program but insisting on remaining in charge.
ReplyDelete