guy who really respects the Marines (I never met a dumb Field Grade Marine officer - they could all do the dumb Marine act brilliantly however) it is well to remember that the USMC is NOT the Army writ small. Neither is the Army the USMC writ large. They are different organizations whose missions sometimes overlap but often do not. So they will and should do many things differently although they can certainly learn from each other.

Break

I'm with all of you who think that we have gone too far in contracting out services - even in the vast majority of the cases where the contractors are honest and competent. There is no easy or short term solution. But the beginning is to clearly identify what is a government function and stop contracting for that function as we build the capacity to perform it back into the government/military. We didn't get to this point overnight - as Ken says, it began in the 70s with the AVF - and we won't reach a new desired equilibrium in a year or two. Hopefully, it won't take us 35 years!

Cheers

JohnT