Sorry, I'd be willing to read Rachel Maddox as much as a liber would read Ann coulter. As for the rest, I'll wait for my brother in laws reply to my email.
Sent from my iPhone 4S. On Feb 28, 2013, at 8:32 PM, "Eric Roberts" <[email protected]> wrote: > > You are already housing, feeding, and clothing the soldiers...so that is > moot. Plus if that is part of their speciality...say like in support and > they are distributing BDU's...wouldn't that already be part of their > training? As far as retention...if they are staying in...isn't that already > being done? It also gives more opportunity for conscientious objectors who > still wish to serve their country, but do not wish to be in combat roles. > There may be a few roles...like the automated ranges that you > mentioned...that may be better off with civilians that are specialized in > that, but there are so many other tasks, like the racking and mowing...low > end maintenance jobs...that would be better if soldiers did it. Cooks > should still be military. I remember that too...we used to rotate as well > during basic. You should read Rachel Maddow's "Drift". It has a lot of > good info on how we have outsourced our military. > > Eric > > -----Original Message----- > From: Bruce Sorge [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 7:09 PM > To: cf-community > Subject: Re: This is long but worth the read > > > I thought so as well, but that's not entirely true. Let me see if I can > remember what Mike (my brother-in-law) told me. > > Contractors do not require much training since one of the requirements for > their job is to have experience in it. Also, contractors are not paid > benefits from the Army, the company that they work for provides the > benefits. > Soldiers require lots of training just to become soldiers, then more > training to learn their job. Plus we have to house, feed and clothe the > soldiers as well. That costs a lot of money. Then soldiers have to have > benefits (medical, dental, vision). > Then there is the issue of retaining soldiers. To retain a soldier, we have > to send them so more schools. If you are enlisted, you have to complete > on-line courses called Structured Self Development. There are five levels > that have to be done over your career and depending on what rank you make. > As a Staff Sergeant, I have had to do levels one and three, level two was > done in an NCO academy. When you become an NCO, you have to go through > different levels of schools as well as you move up in the ranks. > > With contractors, you do not need to worry about any of this. If more > training is required for the contractor to move up, it's the responsibility > of the company that employs the contractor to provide that training, or the > contractor has to pay for their own training. If times are hard, then you > can and will let the contractors go. > For instance, all of the civilians that work with our ranges here at Benning > are all contractors. There are some DOD full time employees, but they are > management types. So come April if no budget is in effect, then these > contractors are going to go away. That's not an issue really since my > battalion runs all the ranges here on post anyway. The civilians do > maintenance and fetch us supplies when we need them. Some ranges, such as > mine do not need their help for maintenance since I do not have automatic > target lifters on my range. It's a Known Distance range. We use those old > school target lifters that are powered by privates. The only thing I do for > maintenance is repair the wooden target frames, or the wooden lifters. > The automated ranges though require training that we as soldiers do not > have. We could be taught but it's better to keep a few of these civilians > because they have a lot more experience on them. And then there are the > lifters for tanks and Bradley's. These are huge and we have no clue about > them. All we know how to do is operate them with the computers in the > towers. > Now in the dining facilities, yes, we can get rid of the civilians. The Army > has tons of cooks and we have tons of privates to wash dishes. I remember > when I was in basic training, all the cooks were Army and we all rotated > through the kitchen to wash dishes,. Usually twice during the 10 week basic > training cycle. > Other contractors are the people that work for housing. You have leasing > managers and maintenance people that the Army does not have. So we need them > as well. Otherwise you have to create new jobs for soldiers, and then train > and retain them. > > Now, let;s talk about the contractors down range. These guys are getting > paid a shit ton of money to do what soldiers can do. But, since the Army > wants maximum boots on the ground to fight, cooks and mechanics and the like > are going out on patrols with the infantry and armor guys, and civilians are > working on trucks and doing the cooking. Civilians outnumber service-members > on some of the larger LSA's (Tim can testify to this I am sure). I am sure > that many of them can go away as well if we had more soldiers in the combat > arms jobs, but since the Army has been cutting back on numbers, this will > never happen. My step-father is a mechanic that works for certain people and > makes around 80K a year tax free while he is overseas. When home on > vacation, he only gets his $30.00ish an hour and pays taxes on that month of > pay. The Army has mechanics that can do his job. Again though, since they > want as many people out the wire as they can get, the civilians are there to > stay because the Army won't increase the number of soldiers it has. The Army > wants to cut around 80K worth of soldiers over the next few years in fact. > > So I guess the answer is that some contractors can go away while most have > to stay because it's still more cost effective to keep them. I am going to > email my brother in law for a more in depth explanation. He is currently in > Afghanistan so it might be a day or two before I get a reply. > > Bruce > On Feb 28, 2013, at 7:37 PM, "Eric Roberts" > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> What they should be doing is cutting contractors period and putting >> soldiers in their place. Hiring contractors to do the jobs costs us >> 10 times as much as it would cost us to have soldiers do the job. > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:361687 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
