Too bad the public doesn't get Mil spending

Reuben

Lost Soul
Dec 23, 2012
18
5
1
DC
In another thread people were discussing the draft. I wish it was 100% mandatory so that people understood what we were spending money on.

During my time in the service I have seen jaw dropping examples of waste. Things that boggled my mind. While my commarades back at home station were running low on funds to buy printer paper and toner, we in the "war zone" were spending money on the most amazing BS you could imagine. When those of us in the Capt and Maj ranks said "this is a waste" we were reminded that if we don't spend it we will lose it in next year's budget. Such high level thinking gave us a million dollar five bay car wash in the middle of the desert (when we already had a one bay car wash that had no lines).

When I got home, and we were out of the Iraq war (which prompted our fight against IEDs) I noticed we were still spending billions on JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Detection and Destruction Organization). This entity alone had a budget that dwarfed some states budgets. But because it had been given funding over time, it was gauranteed funding in each succesive budget. Nevermind that the organization no longer had a mission, it still got funding increases each year.

BS like this is everywhere in the system (lets not talk about the F-35 and F-22 programs, which take military spending waste to levels only contemplated by Star Trek fans). Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines find themselves making due without necessary items on the job, while billions are pissed away by worthless DoD organizations.

Yet, any time we talk about defense cuts the GOP has a coniption fit. If people had spent time in the military they would understand the way money is wasted.
 
When the military becomes a warrior class will it declare martial law?...
:confused:
Is the no-draft military creating a warrior class?
January 2, 2013 WASHINGTON — Some fear all-volunteer force may desensitize US to effects of warfare
Before a roadside bomb in Baghdad burned and tore apart Jerry Majetich, before 62 operations put him back together, even before he volunteered for the Marines, then the Army, there were five older brothers who’d enlisted and a mother who’d served as an Army nurse in Korea. His family background shaped former Staff Sgt. Majetich, who’s now 42 and a single father and investment firm vice president in Jacksonville. Despite the torment since the 2005 blast, that history is part of what moved his 21-year-old son to consider leaving college to pursue a military career, and his 17-year-old daughter to join her high school Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. “I’d be thrilled if they chose to serve,” he said. “Despite everything, I believe in military service.”

January marks 40 years since the United States ended the military draft, and an ever smaller slice of the population appears to share Majetich’s belief, however. Statistics are rare, but a Department of Defense 2011 Status of Forces survey indicated that 57 percent of active troops today are the children of current or former active or reserve members of the armed forces. A recent Gallup poll showed that despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a much smaller percentage of those who’ve reached military age since Sept. 11, 2001, have served than in previous decades.

1502319190.jpg

Jerry Majetich, 42, was wounded in Iraq in 2005 when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. Majetich, shown in Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 27, 2012, has a family history of military service, with his mother and five older brothers also serving.

Part of it is simple demographics. While the U.S. population has grown since the draft ended in 1973, the military has shrunk. But this all-volunteer force appears to be passing from generation to generation, bringing up the worrying notion that the United States is developing a warrior class. “The declining veteran population is one of our concerns, since there are fewer young adults in American society who are exposed to military service,” said Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman. “While the armed forces continue to be largely representative of the country as a whole, nearly four decades of an all-volunteer force has shaped who is most likely to serve and from where.”

In the wide halls of the Pentagon, the military often is referred to as “the world’s largest family business.” The fear among some military leaders, politicians and experts begins with the belief that as fewer segments of society have family or friends in uniform, others become desensitized to the risks and stresses of military service. The feared risks range from a reluctance to fully support those who serve to an almost cavalier willingness to wage war, reasoning, “That’s what THEY signed up for.”

Historically, problems with such classes have ranged from the military having too much influence in all walks of society — Prussian officers collected taxes — to being marginalized, as with the so-called “barbarization” of the Roman military, which relied heavily on non-Romans. Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, has spent decades voicing such fears. He’s one of the few politicians around who still yearn for a draft. “Now, we’re never going to get the draft back,” he said. “But I really believe the greatest risk isn’t to the military and the few who serve, it’s to the rest of society.”

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See also:

Pentagon undeterred by sex scandals; policy on women proceeds
Thursday, January 3, 2013 - Despite sex scandals, Pentagon pushing women closer to battlefield
The Pentagon is pushing ahead with its campaign to move women closer to the battlefield, despite a series of sex scandals involving senior officers and a report showing an increase in sexual assaults among the troops. At the dawn of the all-volunteer military force in 1973, women accounted for less than 3 percent of active-duty and reserve members. Today, 310,000 women make up about 15 percent of the force. In and around the Afghanistan War are nearly 17,000 women in uniform.

With the influx has come increasingly close contact between men and women — and a sharp rise in sexual misconduct. Militarywide, sexual assaults are up 22 percent since 2007, according to a Pentagon report. “The problem is getting worse. It’s not getting better,” said Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness. “Part of the reason is people don’t want to admit what everyone knows to be true. “Men and women are human beings. They react to each other. The do things they are not proud of. Rank has nothing to do with it. It’s not solely a gender issue. Both sexes are involved. All ranks.”

In recent months, an Army general in Afghanistan was accused of forcing a female captain to engage in sex acts, and the Navy has fired commanding officers for sexual misconduct. Even four-star officers are not immune. Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of all NATO forces in Afghanistan, is under a Pentagon investigation for an exchange of flirtatious emails with a married Florida socialite. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have pushed the sexes closer together than ever before in shared living quarters in isolated bases, as well as the close quarters of Navy ships and, now, submarines.

A Department of Veterans Affairs research panel survey found that about half of all women sent to Iraq and Afghanistan say they were sexually harassed, and 1 in 4 say they were sexually assaulted. The findings were based on surveys mailed to 1,100 women who had served in or near the two war zones, according to USA Today. Meanwhile, most recruits begin military life in sex-integrated barracks. “The only thing the military can do is try to encourage discipline instead of indiscipline, and try to avoid the kind of hazardous situations that just make it worse,” Mrs. Donnelly said.

Read more: Pentagon undeterred by sex scandals; policy on women proceeds - Washington Times
 
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When I got home, and we were out of the Iraq war (which prompted our fight against IEDs) I noticed we were still spending billions on JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Detection and Destruction Organization). This entity alone had a budget that dwarfed some states budgets. But because it had been given funding over time, it was gauranteed funding in each succesive budget. Nevermind that the organization no longer had a mission, it still got funding increases each year.

Oh yea, big waste. Because everybody knows that there are no IEDs used in Afghanistan.

:D
 
In another thread people were discussing the draft. I wish it was 100% mandatory so that people understood what we were spending money on.

During my time in the service I have seen jaw dropping examples of waste. Things that boggled my mind. While my commarades back at home station were running low on funds to buy printer paper and toner, we in the "war zone" were spending money on the most amazing BS you could imagine. When those of us in the Capt and Maj ranks said "this is a waste" we were reminded that if we don't spend it we will lose it in next year's budget. Such high level thinking gave us a million dollar five bay car wash in the middle of the desert (when we already had a one bay car wash that had no lines).

When I got home, and we were out of the Iraq war (which prompted our fight against IEDs) I noticed we were still spending billions on JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Detection and Destruction Organization). This entity alone had a budget that dwarfed some states budgets. But because it had been given funding over time, it was gauranteed funding in each succesive budget. Nevermind that the organization no longer had a mission, it still got funding increases each year.

BS like this is everywhere in the system (lets not talk about the F-35 and F-22 programs, which take military spending waste to levels only contemplated by Star Trek fans). Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines find themselves making due without necessary items on the job, while billions are pissed away by worthless DoD organizations.

Yet, any time we talk about defense cuts the GOP has a coniption fit. If people had spent time in the military they would understand the way money is wasted.

You think JIEDDO doesn't have a mission when Americans are blown up with IED's every day but you worry about the price of printing toner and paper? What the fuk outfit were you in?
 
When the military becomes a warrior class will it declare martial law?...
:confused:
Is the no-draft military creating a warrior class?
January 2, 2013 WASHINGTON — Some fear all-volunteer force may desensitize US to effects of warfare

Simple solution for this, is to encourage more people to try and join the military.

And it is not always so simple. My dad never served, but I did. And my son will not serve. Everybody chooses to serve or not to serve for their own reasons. However, just like different businesses often appeal to generation after generation, the military is no different.

But "warrior class"? Not hardly. Anybody is free to join, and since 90% choose to not join, what would you expect?
 
In another thread people were discussing the draft. I wish it was 100% mandatory so that people understood what we were spending money on.

During my time in the service I have seen jaw dropping examples of waste. Things that boggled my mind. While my commarades back at home station were running low on funds to buy printer paper and toner, we in the "war zone" were spending money on the most amazing BS you could imagine. When those of us in the Capt and Maj ranks said "this is a waste" we were reminded that if we don't spend it we will lose it in next year's budget. Such high level thinking gave us a million dollar five bay car wash in the middle of the desert (when we already had a one bay car wash that had no lines).

When I got home, and we were out of the Iraq war (which prompted our fight against IEDs) I noticed we were still spending billions on JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Detection and Destruction Organization). This entity alone had a budget that dwarfed some states budgets. But because it had been given funding over time, it was gauranteed funding in each succesive budget. Nevermind that the organization no longer had a mission, it still got funding increases each year.

BS like this is everywhere in the system (lets not talk about the F-35 and F-22 programs, which take military spending waste to levels only contemplated by Star Trek fans). Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines find themselves making due without necessary items on the job, while billions are pissed away by worthless DoD organizations.

Yet, any time we talk about defense cuts the GOP has a coniption fit. If people had spent time in the military they would understand the way money is wasted.
You've raised an important issue here -- and you know what you're talking about!

Our main economic problem is not so-called "entitlement" spending. It is exactly what President and former General Dwight Eisenhower warned us about when leaving Office. It is the Military Industrial Complex.
 
Our main economic problem is not so-called "entitlement" spending. It is exactly what President and former General Dwight Eisenhower warned us about when leaving Office. It is the Military Industrial Complex.

Yea, that is why entitlement spending is well over twice the DoD budget. Moving from 1.5 trillion to now over 2 trillion dollars a year, while defense is decreasing, from around $775 billion a year to around $640 billion a year by 2015.

Tell that to the Marines.
 
After 22 years on active duty I can honestly say there is some waste and abuse, and throughout the military we could probably tighten it up and save a billion....maybe even 2 or 3 billion...... But that is such a small drop in such a large bucket it's a laugh.......
 
Code:
After 22 years on active duty I can honestly say there is some waste and abuse, and throughout the military we could probably tighten it up and save a billion....maybe even 2 or 3 billion...... But that is such a small drop in such a large bucket it's a laugh.......

I agree there. I have seen it myself many times.

However, I would start by weeding out a large number of the civilians that work for the DoD. I swear that the DoD has become a big civilian hiring program, where said civilians are getting paid big money to do jobs that used to be done by the military.

And at the same time a lot of the military members are sitting around with almost nothing to do, their jobs now done by civilians. Back when I first joined during the Reagan Administration, suggesting that we should stop having Privates do KP would have had me sent to a psycho ward. Now, that is common practice.

And those civilians, with unions and benefits and a paycheck that would make most people in the military very jealous are quickly becoming a big drain on the DoD budget.
 
Some of the best chow I ever had was when we had Military cooks.......Some of the worst was when civilians ran the mess......... I never understood why they did that, Still need the cooks to go with us to the field or into a war zone, at least for the most part........
 
Some of the best chow I ever had was when we had Military cooks.......Some of the worst was when civilians ran the mess......... I never understood why they did that, Still need the cooks to go with us to the field or into a war zone, at least for the most part........

Heck, when we deployed my unit left all of it's cooks in the US. 3 chow halls on our base downrange (one of them 24 hours), and all staffed 90% by TCNs.
 
I retired in 93, we still had deployable cooks then......... Not many But enough for exercises.... For real world they went but were subsidized with civilians.......
 
Our main economic problem is not so-called "entitlement" spending. It is exactly what President and former General Dwight Eisenhower warned us about when leaving Office. It is the Military Industrial Complex.

Yea, that is why entitlement spending is well over twice the DoD budget. Moving from 1.5 trillion to now over 2 trillion dollars a year, while defense is decreasing, from around $775 billion a year to around $640 billion a year by 2015.

Tell that to the Marines.
The first thing you need to do is understand what "entitlements" are and eliminate them from the concept of charity, which is a semantic gimmick the right-wing propaganda machine has sucessfully employed.

Social Security and Medicare are legitimate entitlements. Food Stamps and federally supported welfare programs are not. The reason the right-wing influence, which represents the "have mores" in government, have successfully managed to merge charitable programs with legitimate entitlements is to facilitate the health insurance industry and to privatize Social Security, thus turning it over to Wall Street.

Right now, Social Security is not a drain on the economy. In fact, government is in debt to the program which is self-sustaining until 2038 and with some minor adjustments will remain self-sustaining indefinitely.

Medicare is a problem because of mismanagement, brought about mainly by the medical bureaucracy.

Remove these two legitimate federal programs from the existing misleading category of "entitlements" and the bloated defense budget looms as a major problem.
 
Actually Defense spending was 8.6% of GDP during the height of the Vietnam war and is only 4.6% of GDP today....

Now once again, where is all the spending?
 
Actually Defense spending was 8.6% of GDP during the height of the Vietnam war and is only 4.6% of GDP today....

Now once again, where is all the spending?

chart

US Federal Budget FY13 Estimated Spending Breakdown - Pie Chart

Ollie,

In the same way as the fat can be trimmed from many domestic spending programs the military budget can be significantly reduced, beginning with elimination of the private "contractors" who are replacing military personnel at enormous expense and are clearly intended to become a private army. This development is not only a prominent political menace, its original and continuing purpose is to accommodate the interests of the oil industry.

Also, when I was in the Marine Corps I spent thirty days on mess duty -- as did every other enlisted Marine below the rank of corporal. Everything involved in feeding the troops, both in garrison and in the field, was handled by Marines. There were no civilians. That's not the case today. And I understand it is not the only area of military life which has been filled by civilians at considerably higher cost. And given the comparative length of your experience I'm sure you can point to many other areas which can be addressed for reduction.
 
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Code:
After 22 years on active duty I can honestly say there is some waste and abuse, and throughout the military we could probably tighten it up and save a billion....maybe even 2 or 3 billion...... But that is such a small drop in such a large bucket it's a laugh.......

I agree there. I have seen it myself many times.

However, I would start by weeding out a large number of the civilians that work for the DoD. I swear that the DoD has become a big civilian hiring program, where said civilians are getting paid big money to do jobs that used to be done by the military.

And at the same time a lot of the military members are sitting around with almost nothing to do, their jobs now done by civilians. Back when I first joined during the Reagan Administration, suggesting that we should stop having Privates do KP would have had me sent to a psycho ward. Now, that is common practice.

And those civilians, with unions and benefits and a paycheck that would make most people in the military very jealous are quickly becoming a big drain on the DoD budget.

Why are private military contractors replacing the Marines in such areas as embassy security. Time the the US stopped contracting the military work to private mercenaries.
If the US just got rid of all the Blackwater type contractors and let the US military take those jobs back we would again save billions.
Plus the government could no longer lie when asked if it still had troops in Iraq.
 
Actually Defense spending was 8.6% of GDP during the height of the Vietnam war and is only 4.6% of GDP today....

Now once again, where is all the spending?

chart

US Federal Budget FY13 Estimated Spending Breakdown - Pie Chart

Ollie,

In the same way as the fat can be trimmed from many domestic spending programs the military budget can be significantly reduced, beginning with elimination of the private "contractors" who are replacing military personnel at enormous expense and are clearly intended to become a private army. This development is not only a prominent political menace, its original and continuing purpose is to accommodate the interests of the oil industry.

Also, when I was in the Marine Corps I spent thirty days on mess duty -- as did every other enlisted Marine below the rank of corporal. Everything involved in feeding the troops, both in garrison and in the field, was handled by Marines. There were no civilians. That's not the case today. And I understand it is not the only area of military life which has been filled by civilians at considerably higher cost. And given the comparative length of your experience I'm sure you can point to many other areas which can be addressed for reduction.

I don't know about significantly but we do agree that civilian contractors for the most part should disappear. I pulled my share of KP duty also... The only civilians we had in our company mess at my first real duty station in 72 was 2 civilian KP's because we were at a Nike Herc Battery and there was no one to pull KP. Another area that has been taken over by civilians is Supply. Both at company and post level.... And I was surprised to learn that MP's are no longer used for Gate guard duty but that many are now done by private security firms...WTF?
 
In another thread people were discussing the draft. I wish it was 100% mandatory so that people understood what we were spending money on.

During my time in the service I have seen jaw dropping examples of waste. Things that boggled my mind. While my commarades back at home station were running low on funds to buy printer paper and toner, we in the "war zone" were spending money on the most amazing BS you could imagine. When those of us in the Capt and Maj ranks said "this is a waste" we were reminded that if we don't spend it we will lose it in next year's budget. Such high level thinking gave us a million dollar five bay car wash in the middle of the desert (when we already had a one bay car wash that had no lines).

When I got home, and we were out of the Iraq war (which prompted our fight against IEDs) I noticed we were still spending billions on JIEDDO (Joint Improvised Explosive Detection and Destruction Organization). This entity alone had a budget that dwarfed some states budgets. But because it had been given funding over time, it was gauranteed funding in each succesive budget. Nevermind that the organization no longer had a mission, it still got funding increases each year.

BS like this is everywhere in the system (lets not talk about the F-35 and F-22 programs, which take military spending waste to levels only contemplated by Star Trek fans). Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines find themselves making due without necessary items on the job, while billions are pissed away by worthless DoD organizations.

Yet, any time we talk about defense cuts the GOP has a coniption fit. If people had spent time in the military they would understand the way money is wasted.

Were you in when clinton did make cuts?

if so, you know as well as I that the waste wasn't stopped, only good people got fucked over.

so yeah, the gop doesn't want to have that happen again.


Thanks for not caring.
 
In the same way as the fat can be trimmed from many domestic spending programs the military budget can be significantly reduced, beginning with elimination of the private "contractors" who are replacing military personnel at enormous expense and are clearly intended to become a private army. This development is not only a prominent political menace, its original and continuing purpose is to accommodate the interests of the oil industry.

Also, when I was in the Marine Corps I spent thirty days on mess duty -- as did every other enlisted Marine below the rank of corporal. Everything involved in feeding the troops, both in garrison and in the field, was handled by Marines. There were no civilians. That's not the case today. And I understand it is not the only area of military life which has been filled by civilians at considerably higher cost. And given the comparative length of your experience I'm sure you can point to many other areas which can be addressed for reduction.

Actually, my issue is not always as much with the contractors, as it is the permanent hires. Contractors can come and go (although I don't understand why Civilian companies now manage the bass housing). But other then paying them, the responsibility pretty much ends there, and the contracts can be cancelled.

And yea, when I was in the Marines in the 1980's, Mess Duty was just something you were expected to do every year or so. Along with so many other "Special Duties" you might get assigned to. I know at Camps Pendleton and LeJeune, one of the most requested of these was working at the Base Stables. Or the Gym, the Base Theatre, the Dive Locker, or many other such positions we would fill for 1-12 months.

Now, it is almost all civilians. Go to the gym at Fort Bliss, is all run and staffed by civilians. Same with the theatre, and every other MWR facility. Generally we almost fought for these types of positions after deployment, as spending 6 months as a gym monitor let us see our family a lot more and on a regular schedule.

Now, they pay civilians who are union members (with pensions) to man these positions. I find that absolutely insane. Even supply is now run by civilians.
 
Why are private military contractors replacing the Marines in such areas as embassy security. Time the the US stopped contracting the military work to private mercenaries.
If the US just got rid of all the Blackwater type contractors and let the US military take those jobs back we would again save billions.
Plus the government could no longer lie when asked if it still had troops in Iraq.

That is often done for several reasons.

Generally, the number of staff allowed at an embassy is set by treaty. And moving in more Marines for any length of time is generally very frowned upon.

However, private security (which in this case is generally done by retired military) fall outside of that scope, so is an effective way to increase the number of people available, without raising local tensions by "bringing in more Marines". For example, both Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods (who were killed in the Benghazi attack) were a former Navy SEALs.

Also, normally the Marines only guard embassies, not consulates. The Ambasador had been requesting increased security (both military and contractors), but had been refused. But that is something else entirely.
 

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