2004-09-16 - 12:01 p.m.
Recently I was flipping through blackpanty's diary (always and entertaining passtime), and came across a recent entry mentioning that Republicans are spending money on new warheads. Everyone knows that billions of dollars have been put into Iraq and Afghanistan, obviosly much of it used for buying weapons. I think that a lot of people have the wrong idea about where much of the money goes though, so maybe my experiences with the military can help open people's eyes a little bit.
In my nearly 3 years of service in the Army, I've seen quite a few things that truly amazed me about our military, one of the biggest things being waste. The Army throws away countless dollars every year, and our economy pays the price. I'm going to present a small list of things that I've seen that should they change could save America an inordinate amount of money.
1) Civilian Employees. The Army spends millions of dollars per year paying civilians to do jobs that we have soldiers already trained to do. Cooks would be a prime example. Or "Food Service Specialist" as the army likes to put it. This is one of the many MOS's (military occupational specialty) in the Army. We spend the money to train these soldiers to cook, send them to classes and demonstrations all over the country, give them a paycheck every two weeks, but they don't do their job. The Army has hired civilians to cook and serve the food in our dining facilities, and now our trained cooks are nothing more than dishwashers. Why do we pay these civilian employees more than we do soldiers who are trained to do the same job, and also do it considerably better? There is the same problem with the gaurds at the many gates to Ft Carson and other posts around the country. Before I left for Iraq each unit here would take turns sending soldiers to pull gaurd at the gates. For example, my company would have to give up a certain amount of soldiers every day for a week to do gate gaurd during the duty day, and then the responsibility would move on to the next unit. I saw nothing wrong with this system, but now the Army pays civilians $16 per hour to do this job. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We have civilian mechanics, engineers, nurses, the list goes on and on. These are all jobs that the Army has soldiers trained to do, but we pay civilians to do them anyway. Why is a mystery to me.
2) Lowest Bidder. The military buys every single piece of equipment from the lowest bidder. Every company who manufactures our equipment knows this, so if the lowest bidder for rucksacks is $200 dollars apiece, guess what? That's what the military is going to pay. I can buy an E-tool (small folding shovel issued to all soldiers) on my own for under $20, but the military pays $42 dollars apiece for them. Should the military ever become more aggresive and demand fair prices from the manufacturers we buy equipment from, America would save an astronomical amount of money.
3) Lack of organization. I couldn't even begin to say how many times I've seen entire milvans of equipment get lost. So what happens? New equipment is ordered. Simple mistakes such as body armor being put into the fucking red milvan instead of the green one or orders put in for 1 1/4" sockets instead of 1 1/2" costs the military millions of dollars every year. Contrary to what many Americans seem to believe, the Army is not an organized force. There are countless middlemen to go through for everything you do, paperwork gets lost or done improperly every day, and it costs America money.
4) Misplacement of Resources. The Iraqi Army is finished. They are not going to come in waves invading our airfields across Iraq. So why is it that soldiers on places like LSA Anaconda in Balad or Baghdad airport are given countless rounds of small arms ammunition desperately needed by the infantrymen and tankers and engineers who are out in the city streets actually fighting the enemy? I saw far too many soldiers in Iraq who will never go outside the airfields and never fight the enemy carrying full combat loads (210 rounds) of M16 ammo, frag grenades, flash bangs (stun grenades), and countless other supplies they simply don't need. They have laser sights on their weapons, the newest and most expensive night vision technology available to the military, $200 sunglasses, $150 Benchmade switchblades, the list goes on and on. Why is the military spending money to give equipment to soldiers that they will never use?
5) Purchases of Useless Equipment. I guess this one kindof falls into the same category as the last, but whatever. While I was in Iraq, for the first 4 months we never stayed in one area for more than 6 days. We were not living in buildings with electricity and water, we were living in trenches or the occasional bombed out Iraqi military barracks. However, we were supplied with air conditioners. Air conditioners that we apparantly were supposed to plug into the sand and use the abundant amount of electricity spewing out of the Earth in Iraq to keep ourselves cool. Not only was this an extreme waste of money, but it was one of the most aggravating experiences I've ever been through. Do you have any idea how much it pisses you off to sit around wearing body armor and a helmet and carry a good 60 lbs worth of equipment in 157 degree weather and have to look at a brand new air conditioner? The army could have spent that money on water for us to drink instead. That would've been nice.
6) POOR INTELLIGENCE!! This is one of the biggest problems the Army has. Every single mission that we do in a combat environment costs money. Fuel and other maitenance costs for Bradleys, tanks, Humvees, helicopters, ect. Money to give to our "informants" who told us where we could find priority targets. Food, water, ammo, ect. All too many times missions that we would us an entire battallion's worth of force if not more for turned out to be nothing more than a field of fucking sheep. Anyone who does a little research of Operation Black Flag in Iraq will see a prime example. A little more time spent into verifying that intelligence is correct before taking action could save quite a few dollars. Of course, military intelligence is an oxymoron, so I guess this problem is to be expected.
I could keep this list going considerably longer, however I'm on my lunch break right now and need to get back to work. But if any of you were wondering why the military is costing America so much right now, you at least have some small idea. Should the Army ever learn to manage it's dollars properly, Americans will be saved quite a bit of grief. Unfortunately I don't see it happening anytime soon. If anything, these problems and the many others not listed here causing the military to waste billions are getting worse on an almost daily basis. Oh, and I've found something quite interesting that I think every American in the country needs to see. How accurate this is I really don't know, but it's definitely worth taking a look at: http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php "Welcome aboard, you are now looking at the objective reality. Please stay focused"
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