Posted on 11/28/2007 5:49:42 PM PST by El Gato
I understand totally.
I took command of an artillery battery in 1979.
The howitzers we had were made in the 1940’s and the prime movers in the 1960’s.
Semper Fi,
Yes, it's the Democrats' preferred method for destroying our military: defund it.
It's so easy in this case because all the Democrats have to do is nothing, and they get the results that they want.
I understand. At first I thought you were freaking out for no reason other than Patriotism, but now I see that you’re freaking out because the Military is your bread & butter, as a Civilian Contractor.
“Up until about 3 years ago, I was a “supplier” type contractor, R&D type, not direct support type. I’ve been sheltered. Jobs that would have been blue suiters (or green suiters in the Army) in my day, were first converted to DAF/DA civilians and then as those slots were cut, to contractors. And I know enough about how things work in the military bureacracy, civilian side, to know that they won’t be furloughing high level types, instead they will let the folks low on the totem pole go.”
If that’s the case (and I’m a small business owner/contractor, myself) it’s time to diversify or cut your own financial losses and tighten up your budget on your own home front where you can. It’s been my experience that there are no forever and ever amen “gravy trains” running in this world that can’t be derailed by some quirk of fate. You can make money in wartime, but you can also easily lose it. Any ‘Good Little Capitalist’ knows that! :)
You make your own ‘luck’ through your skills meeting opportunity. (Not to get all “Oprah-ish” on ya, LOL!) But, get bizzy! Your own fate is what you make it.
(And I say all of this because we’ve been to hell and back this past year with our own business. Forces beyond our control have totally ravaged us. We. Are. Broke. But we’re regrouping and re-tooling and due to technology we can be rebuilt. You can, too!)
The military has been my entire adult life. As an Air Force officer, AF Reserve officer, Air National Guard officer, and as a military contractor. I've made much larger and more important contributions to the defense of the nation as a contractor. Stuff I "invented" flys on the F-16 and F-15E, as well as Army Special Ops helicopters and will fly on the V-22. Air Weapons controllers train on an AWACS simulator I made major contributions to, including for the first time, coding on the actual product, in addition to programs used in the design and analysis of the product. The system is also used in the training of F-15 pilots to operate with weapons controllers. The rewarding thing about that project was I got to interact with the end users a whole more than ever before, even to being a fly on the wall during those F-15 training exercises.
It's what I do, I build things, or more properly design and/or analyze them, some of them go boom, some don't. Not much demand for that sort of skill in the military itself. But I chose this line of work because it was military. Believe me, it doesn't pay as well as other things I could have done. Pays OK, but at about the time I would have made Major, if I'd stayed active duty, the salary curves, Military verses engineer, crossed. I'd have made more money if I'd stayed in. The only reasons I got any "make up" pay, when I went on active duty, from my employer as a reservist, was the way they only use base pay in the determination, and the fact that I had a break, so my reserve military rank wasn't where it would have been without the break, and thus my pay was lower. But I like the work and feel it's important.. or that was true until I became a direct support contractor, not voluntarily I might add.
But this isn't about me or other contractors, it's about the destruction of our defense capability, started during the latter part of the Bush I administration, really got going under The Impeached One, and then was not really reversed under the Bush II administration.
That's what concerns me. I like you took an oath to support and defend, just because I switched to the civilian part of what was once known as the Arsenal of Democracy, doesn't mean I abandoned that oath. If you look at any indicator of how much effort we put into defending the nation, which is the prime reason we even have a federal government, you see a more or less continuous degradation starting with the end of the Reagan administration. But even the Reagan build up didn't reach the level of commitment, in terms of fraction of the GDP, as had been applied during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Meanwhile the total burden of the federal government on the economy and thus the nation, has risen somewhat, although not a large amount (although it did during the Clinton years). The money is all going to "entitlements", the military is not the only thing that has lost "share" to entitlements.
Your own fate is what you make it.
At some point you run out of options. I'm approaching retirement age, but I'm quite close enough to do it early, should disaster strike, which I don't think it will for me personally. But I've already been laid off once and went from working for a big electronics contractor to a little group in a still not all that big organization that does training, generates training materials and builds trainers, mostly but not exclusively, for the military and other government agencies. We also build/generate stuff for private industry.
BTW, living almost 4 hours (now) or 6 1/2 hours (until 3 years ago) from your spouse is not a "gravy train" by any stretch. It's just getting by. With the birth of grandchildren, which are only an hour from me and 4 hours from my wife, we're both getting sick to death of living apart.
Well, I can’t solve your personal and career problems for you, and I can’t do anything more for our Nation than to vote my conscience each and every time I have the HONOR and OBLIGATION of doing so.
I totally enjoyed my twenty years in the Army, but I see it for what it was. You and I are NOTHING special; just cogs in a machine much bigger than ourselves.
I offered helpful advice, but it’s obvious you only needed a forum to get it all off your chest. Hope it helped.
Now, get busy, make changes where needed and quit complaining about the life you CHOSE for yourself and your family...Um...Sir, LOL! :)
True, perhaps, or mostly. But if one doesn't see the "big picture" of what is happening, that conscience is not going to be very well informed, now is it?
That's all I was originally trying to do, inform. I gave the personal information because it shows where I get my viewpoint. Then you assumed, and apparently still assume, that I'm just worried about my job. Far from it. I'm worried about our country's future. Very worried indeed.
BTTT
right on!! They sould not be able to do this it is so wrong i can’t believe that they could get away with this
I think it would be a fine idea to stop the pay and benefits of every member of Congress until the military funding bills are signed by the President.
And all of the Congress’s staff as well.
Works for me. :)
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