Create a U.S. Foreign Legion

[bismark17]

Ultimately, it seems like our whole Federal government is being outsourced. There was an interesting article on that in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal on how much of our Federal Government depends on contractors. It's going to bite us some day.

[Ski]

As someone who works on a high level staff that is chock full with contractors, it's already a problem. They don't have decision making authority for the most part, so they attend meetings and report back to "green suiters" who have to make a decision. I'd rather have military personnel who can attend meetings and make decisions based on their own judegement than bog down the decision making process even more.

[Bill Moore]

Interested points, and while I have many friends who are contractors, I still have my concerns. Most are retired military (in my world), and while they are loyal to the unit they work with, there must be a friction between loyalty to the unit and to their contracting company at times? We're also putting ourselves in a position (probably already have) where a contracting (outsourcing company) like Brown and Root will have significant leverage in determining how we implement a particular strategy (no guys, we can't, or we don't want, to support that course of action, but if you buy our services for OEF-P, then we'll see what we can do). That said I don't think we can afford to go back to the old ways. There are some advantages for having contractors also. First you can hire experience (retired military), and second you hire continuity, the guy/gal can stay there for five years or so. That is value added in many cases.

[John T. Fishel]

Some are not. Running a mess hall is in the "not" category; B&R (now KBR) does that really well. Doing and MTT for the entire Croatian army or an Iraqi unit is inherently a government job. I worked for Jim Steele in Panama and saw him in action in both Panama and El Salvador. While I would hire COL Steele to train the Iraqis in a heartbeat, I would not hire Mr Steele or any other retired officer as a contractor to do the same. There is too much capacity to commit the USG in that role.
When I was on active duty in SOUTHCOM and supervising a contract the limits were clear. The contractor had to produce a substative deliverable. While I was a civilian at NDU, I saw contractors constantly producing what I would call personal services even though our contractor went out of his way to try to keep the deliverables substantive. He failed in that, but others were not even trying and DOD simply winked.

[120mm]

As a military contractor, I can tell you there is both good and bad. We have some hardworking overachievers and some fat-cats just sucking the teat. The current group of "green" officers working at our training center are good guys, but lack depth and breadth of experience. The better contractors provide them sound advice and "gravitas" to make them more effective, should they choose to listen.

Our biggest problem is not the "teat-suckers", it is officers on the "green" side that do not understand how to manage contractors. On one hand, they consistently ask for things that are not a part of the "substantive" contract, and result in the "personal services" part that John speaks of, above. One of the most critical part of my job is ensuring "slide color" is correct. (Ironically, this was the part of my job I detest when I'm wearing the green suit.)

On the other hand, contractors are often not supervised correctly and the green suiters really don't understand the contract, resulting in green suiters doing work the contractors are being paid for. We installed a bunch of facilities on LSA Anaconda, which my SGM later found out were part of a contract, which the contractor collected money for.

Contractors, like horses, have their care issues and limitations. If the Army wants to use them, they need to train all their folks in basic contractor husbandry to make them efffective and to know their limits.

[John T. Fishel]

Well said 120! I neglected to say in the earlier post that I have been on both sides of the fence, at the time a function of being a reservist on long tours of active duty punctuated by a different civilian career. As one of my early military bosses put it while referring to General officers' "horse holders," their care and feeding is up to you. This is especially true of contractors. The problem, as I see it, is with the government in choosing to outsource things that should not be outsourced. This is a very short sighted approach based on perceived near term economic benefits that, I expect, will not hold up over the long term. Some near term solutions that I would consider are: (1) calling members of the retired reserve back to active duty to either carry out functions that should not be contracted out or to supervise the contracts; (2) hiring retirees from the military, state, and other government agencies as excepted service DOD civilians to carry out key functions; (3) formally change the rules on "personal service" contracts so that it is easier to both do business and hold the contractor accountable under the terms of the contract rather than under such potentially draconian measures as putting contractors under UCMJ (a complaint of one of my best friends - a contractor).

[Old Eagle]

Been a contractor off and on, including a "rolodex" contractor.

While John's proposed solutions are attractive, I don't see them happening.

There are a lot of things that need to stay private -- grounds maintenenace, garrison support functions, etc. But John is also right when he says that there are some things that should stay military. Maybe the personnel laws need to be changed to allow what he suggests.

As it stands now, when the Army hires me through a company, they rent my skills based on 30 years of experience in very diverse areas. Extensive experience in the joint, interagency and international arena are hard to replicate with active duty folks because by the time you amass all that experience, you get thrown out. When I am not working, I am sitting around without pay, without benefits, just waiting for the phone to ring, like some kinda ...