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.