Army is breaking, let down by Washington

Stars And Stripes ^ | Aug 2, 2015 | Robert H. Scales

[huldah1776]

Last month, Gen. Ray Odierno, outgoing Army chief of staff, and Gen. Mark Milley, his successor, testified to the difficulties faced by the Army. I’d like to make the same points by telling a story.

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The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the past four years, the Army has canceled 20 major programs, postponed 125 and restructured 124. The Army will not replace its Reagan-era tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and aircraft for at least a generation. Soldiers stay in the ranks because they serve in a unit ready for combat; fewer than a third of the Army’s combat brigades are combat-ready.

And this initial 40,000-soldier reduction is just a start. Most estimates from Congress anticipate that without lifting the budget sequestration that is driving this across-the-board decline, another 40,000 troops will be gone in about two years.

But it’s soldiers who tell the story. After 13 years of war, young leaders are voting with their feet again. As sergeants and young officers depart, the institution is breaking for a third time in my lifetime. The personal tragedies that attended the collapse of a soldier’s spirit in past wars are with us again. Suicide, family abuse, alcohol and drug abuse are becoming increasingly more common.

[Pelham]

“There definitely wasn’t enough auditing in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

War zones can be lax. Sometimes the problem is with locals whose cooperation you want. Sometimes it’s our own people looking to enrich themselves and figuring that no one will notice. It may take time but often someone does notice.

My dad was in the Army from WWII through the beginnings of Vietnam. In WWII as the Army was moving quickly sometimes there were supply depots where items were simply piled up in huge heaps and you could take what you needed- quartermasters weren’t always able to set up an accounting system quickly enough. In Vietnam you were dealing with a different problem. Locals who wanted to get paid off. American contractors who diverted funds or sold equipment.

[huldah1776]

Talk about government accounting, am reading another thread about the NSA and its British counterpart...

“Behind the Zircon [brit spy satellite]scandal was deception. The government had previously been caught hiding weapons expenditure using false accounting. They then promised to report, in secret if needed, on any project costing more than £250 million (about $400 million). No sooner was this promise made than it was broken for GCHQ’s purposes. Operating Zircon would also have raised GCHQ’s costs by one third.”

I miss Robert Ludlum. Here’s the thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3320299/posts

Maybe this administration is NOT spending all that money on welfare and o-care?

[Pelham]

We do have ‘black’ projects but I’m not sure how they get funded.

My dad told me about a time at the Pentagon when his boss, a general officer, told him to go see another general down the hall and ask him for a large sum of money. Dad said “What am I supposed to tell him?” His boss said “Nothing. He doesn’t have the right security clearance.”

So dad goes down the hall and does exactly what he was told. He comes back a short while later and his boss says “Well how did it go?” Dad says “Just like you’d expect it would go. I asked him for the money. He said ‘What for?’ I said ‘I can’t tell you, you don’t have the right clearance’ at which point he said ‘Get the hell out of my office!’

Evidently that’s not the way that secret programs, even small ones, normally get funded. No one in their right mind would hand over money without knowing where it was going.

I’ve tried over the years to get dad to tell me what programs he worked on. Keep in mind that these programs were 50 years ago. He always tells me “Nope. You don’t have the clearance”.

[ought-six]

I have nothing against capitalism. I rather like it.

[huldah1776]

It is Biblical, but putting it on the throne of your life is the point. Love the parable of the talents myself.

Matthew 25
29 “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. 30 Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Of course, there is always the parable that explains the spiritual world. I try to see the spiritual in all I can. It’s the way God will judge those who do not have the Law.

[SZonian]

Yeah, if you have a pair of the pants, along with MCU’s, ABU’s, etc. you can build a decent wardrobe...