Quote Originally Posted by J Wolfsberger View Post
The technical specialists necessary to keep those systems up and running, and especially to keep the bad guys from knocking them down, won't be in uniform. The sad truth is that once they're trained, they make way more as civilians. Which means they get out, go to the contractor, who puts them back in the same duty station as a civilian at 4 or 5 or more times as much pay. I really don't think that could be solved by making them officers, either.

And that's just one area. That sad truth is that the technical sophistication of our systems are (and have been) at a level where the Army can't compete with the private sector for the expertise required to keep them going. CLS is here to stay.

Bingo. The Army already had that problem back in the 70's with the troops it spent 12-18 months training to maintain its SIGINT/EW systems. I/EW system maintainers left the schoolhouse for their first assignment with civilian job offers already in hand.