Contractors Doing Combat Service Support is a Bad, Bad Idea

[Sargent]

Uboat wrote:

Can you point to any circumstance when a front line guys didn't eat because of contractors? I don't know about the Marines but there are plenty of Army log convoys traveling all over Iraq. If there is a place where the contractors won't go because it is too dangerous then we have military log guys to carry supply to those areas. Just because we have contractors carrying a lot of the stuff does not mean that our log don't carry any. Presumably it is the same with the Marines.

I can send you specific details in a private message, but I don't want to get into it on the open list.

But generally, I understand full well that, in combat, front line logistics are a bear. I know that at times supply and support can be severely constrained, and troops must make do with very little. I also know how powerful the urge to give the troops as much as possible can be -- so much so that commanders have at times unnecessarily risked the lives of their troops to do so. I do not, however, have much tolerance for a system that can leave some out in the cold when but a few miles away guys are eating ice cream -- all the while, the contractor is still paid. That's just ridiculous.

Now it's your turn. Explain for me and Ski how the sort of quality of life efforts being made on behalf of the vast majority of Americans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is not harming our COIN effort. Can you justify generators being run non-stop to keep the lobsters and ice cream on ice while most Iraqis are still without a reliable electrical system? How do you propose for the Iraqi Army to learn how to DIY their own logistics at the battalion level when they have no model from which to learn?

Regards,
Jill

[Ken White]

...I do not, however, have much tolerance for a system that can leave some out in the cold when but a few miles away guys are eating ice cream -- all the while, the contractor is still paid. That's just ridiculous.

The guys out in the heat in OTOH may well want Ice Cream -- unlike you, they understand why they can't have it (as has been repeatedly explained by several others above) and they don't get too wrapped around the axle about luck of the draw REMFs eating better (as has also been repeatedly stated).

Now it's your turn. Explain for me and Ski how the sort of quality of life efforts being made on behalf of the vast majority of Americans deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan is not harming our COIN effort...

Good try. Hard to prove a negative.

...Can you justify generators being run non-stop to keep the lobsters and ice cream on ice while most Iraqis are still without a reliable electrical system?

Sure. Those generators are running lights, computers, defensive systems and hospitals -- and the vaccines, serum and blood the treatment facilities need. The lobsters and ice cream are only a microscopically small part of the mass of food it takes to feed the troops. Most of that food is cheap stringy contract beef, pork and chicken plus vegetables. Most of it also doesn't taste that great, the steak and lobster can be tough and stringy too but at least they make up for Chili Mac and Roasted Chicken.

The Iraqis have more electricity now than they had in 2002 and they know it. They are unlikely to ever have the relative luxury the US does and takes with it where ever it goes.That may offend some but it's a fact of life and has been true in every war we've been in during my lifetime. I doubt it will change. Even if we get a Spartan for CJCS...

How do you propose for the Iraqi Army to learn how to DIY their own logistics at the battalion level when they have no model from which to learn?

One should expect them to resurrect the previous logistic system they had, copied from the British and that worked for them through a pretty big war in the 1980-88. That's a fact of history. They'll take on a few US modifications but it will basically be an Iraqi log system as it should be.

We do BTW, have log systems at Bn level to include cooks. It's cheaper and easier to use the contract mess to cook huge quantities and the Bn picks up and distributes it to the Outposts (not the contractor, the Bn and the units in that Bn).

Doesn't have to be your way, Ski's way or my way to work...

And I'm still waiting for this:

"No one has yet come up with a viable alternative that will meet the needs and goals of the nation, the army -- or of today's troops who are very emphatically not Spartans, Roman Legionaires, Revolutionary Continentals or even post Civil War troopies. I'll wait for that."