and other conservatives, kill our cattle and family pets, and herd senior citizens into FEMA Death Camps.
Posted on 04/28/2014 1:40:58 PM PDT by PoloSec
Why is the Pentagon to destroy ammunition for our men and women in uniform while the Department of Homeland Security is buying up millions of rounds of ammunition? As we asked last week, why are we decimating our military while many government agencies are arming up?
You really have to wonder why, according to USA Today, “The Pentagon plans to destroy more than $1 billion worth of ammunition although some of those bullets and missiles could still be used by troops, according to the Pentagon and congressional sources. It’s impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction — valued at $1.2 billion by the Pentagon — remains viable because the Defense Department’s inventory systems can’t share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report obtained by USA TODAY. The result: potential waste of unknown value.”
Everyone complains about fraud, waste and abuse of American taxpayer dollars, and I will admit there is a degree of that in the Department of Defense (DoD), the Pentagon. I firmly supported — still do –an audit of the DoD when I sat on the House Armed Services Committee. But still, it makes you wonder.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said, “Despite years of effort, the Army, Navy and Air Force still don’t have an efficient process for doing something as basic as sharing excess bullets. This Government Accountability Office (GAO) report clearly shows that our military’s antiquated systems lead to millions of dollars in wasteful ammunition purchases.” The Army and Pentagon, in a statement, acknowledged “the need to automate the process” and will make it a priority in future budgets. In all, the Pentagon manages a stockpile of conventional ammunition worth $70 billion.
Now, this last part is quite perplexing to me, having spent 22 years in the US Army as a combat artillery officer and being quite involved in ammunition management as a Brigade/Regimental operations officer, a Battalion Executive officer, and a Battalion Commander. We constantly received spreadsheets that were reconciled monthly for ammunition allocation and use. In the Army we have Division and Corps level Ammunition Officers whose sole mission is ammunition management, which is forecasted out and allocated yearly.
Excess ammunition? We were begging for excess ammunition for training purposes. And I recall on several occasions when I was an Army exchange officer with the II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune working out some issues on ammunition transfer and training between XVIIIth Airborne Corps, Ft. Bragg. So what is this baloney?
Folks, this is why we need more men and women serving on Capitol Hill who have served in uniform and can raise the Bovine Excrement flag. It would also behoove these Members of the House and Senate who are on Armed Services committees to have staffers who are veterans and can provide proper insight and perspective.
However, more importantly, we need former servicemen and women in civilian leadership with oversight of the military who understand the tactical level processes and procedures so that at the higher strategic level, this type of foolishness does not occur. Instead, we have political nepotism and cronyism, as too many are positioned due to their campaign contributions or agenda allegiance, not because of their military experience or expertise.
USA Today says the GAO report illustrates the obsolete nature of the Pentagon’s inventory systems for ammunition. A request for ammunition from the Marine Corps, for example, is e-mailed to the Army. The e-mail is printed out and manually retyped into the Army system because the services cannot share data directly. Not only is this time consuming, but it can introduce errors — by an incorrect keystroke, for example.
Waste, buying new ammunition while usable stockpiles exist, can occur “because the Army does not report information on all available and usable items,” the report states. The annual conference among the services — although it saves about $70 million per year, according to the Pentagon — is inadequate. The services, in fiscal year 2012, exchanged 44 million items, including 32 million bullets for machine guns and pistols. Specifically, the Army’s report does not include information from prior years about usable ammunition that was unclaimed by another service and stored for potential foreign military sales or slated for potential disposal,” the report says.
All of which begs the simple question: who is in charge? Who is tracking ammunition production, allocation, usage, and redistribution? This is why a serious audit system is necessary. If a monthly reconciliation is done at the unit/installation level, there should at least be a quarterly reconciliation at higher levels. If that is being done, then we should have fail-safe systems as well as procedures and methods upgraded to ensure effective and efficient management.
This is unacceptable and I bet you could sell the excess usable 9 mm ammunition at a reduced price to civilian outlets — and make money for the DoD. But then that would mean you’re arming civilians…
“The only time that it make sense to destroy ammunition is when the enemy is about to overrun your position.”
They never taught that little tidbit in the USMC. Never once heard that one. They were more of the school of thought that one should be going cyclic, towards the bad guys.
And that the slacker destroying our own ammo should be up there shooting too.
ammunition stored properly should remain “viable” for decades’
He is an idea. Randomly pull a few rounds from each case and fire them off. If the operate as designed then the ammunition is good. Then instead of Homeland etc buying new ammo for their “target” practice they could use this ammo.
Oh sorry. That would make sense and there for not be something the Government would do......
Who is in charge?
The Pentagon political officers whose boss is the Kenyan SOB who wants to destroy the USA.
Does any one know anything about the source of this article? Who are they?
Maybe that’s what the PTB believes...
Do you mean Allen West ( http://allenbwest.com/2014/04/pentagon-destroy-1-billion-worth-ammo-makes-sense/ )? Or the source of the $1 billion figure?
This only increases my suspicion that the government is behind the current civilian ammo shortage.
Probably a lot of it is 7.62 NATO armor piercing. Which has been deemed to be “handgun ammunition”.
That I breathe my las'
Then by God I pray
That I may pass
In a big pile of hot brass.
There shouldn't be "surplus ammo" in a firefight. And if there is, you ain't fighting hard enough. I've ran out, but I've never had too much.
What the Guns 0 ran to 3rd world Countries can’t use ammo for 50 cents on the dollar!
correct link:
http://allenbwest.com/2014/04/pentagon-destroy-1-billion-worth-ammo-makes-sense/
Thanks for correcting that!
To who? Us? We are the enemy.
Well, the thought was to blow the dump with the enemy on top of you taking them out in the process.
Hardly sarcasm because it's almost literally true. But I understand the label.
“The only time that it make sense to destroy ammunition is when the enemy is about to overrun your position.”
The Japanese didn’t do that during the “Island Hopping” campaign in WWll. My Uncle told me stories of taking an island, and using the stuff the Japanese left behind to attack the next island. He said they’d fire the machine guns until the barrels warped, and then just grab another and continue. The Japanese would only drain the hydraulic fluid from artillery pieces, figuring that would disable them. They forgot about good old Yankee ingenuity! My Uncle and his fellow soldiers would hook up heavy ropes to the pieces, and fasten the other end to Jeeps. The Jeeps took care of the recoil!
I talked to a former coworker and he said there is no ammo for them to go to Camp Swift for marksmanship training. That stopped over two years ago, shortly after I retired.
Is it because of expired lot numbers? If so, it’s nothing new. Whatever the units don’t burn up during gunnery, EOD ends up doing their training on what remains.
While I was in Bosnia, we went to the range in Glamoc, and usually we would get 2 48 round boxes of 40mm training rounds (flash bangs) for the Mk-19 plus 10 live HE rounds for gunnery.
When drawing our ammo we were issued 20 boxes of HEDP and were told that none of it was to be turned in.
The guys with the Ma Duce each drew a bunch of boxes, and I can’t remember exactly what the TOW’s got, but we all got a huge amount of ammo to blow through in 2 hours.
Even our Aero Scout element got to blow through ammo too.
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