Posted on Mar 24, 2015
Have Ideas to save miltary money and enhance training, would like NCO/Officer's input.
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Just retired in December 2014 completely disabled, with nothing better to do except bother y'all. However, that doesn't mean I lost my love for you all, or my patriotism, or my love for the service.
With the drawdowns, the budget cuts, BRAC, I have some ideas that would save money and cut other things while enhancing training and preparing Joe for the civilian world. Now of course some laws would have to be changed in Congress or wherever you guys do that stuff that. But here they are:
1. Instead of cutting Joe, why not first cut the civilians? For example, I just left the wounded transition Battalion on Fort Carson. Out of that whole organization you only had one good civilian doctor in that organization. Why can't we fire them and replace them with green suit doctors? I know some people have their thing about green suit doctors, but I've been serving since 1983 and I trust them more than I do the white suits. And it enhances their training. Your pain in the green suits anyway, get them working.
3. Military installation route clearance. Fort Carson a great example. We don't get a lot of snow, but when we do we get it. Why are we contracting out to the city or private contractors to clear snow, sweeping streets or normal upkeep of the base installation when we have combat engineers that could do this? This would be awesome training for them, and real-world experience. Just think how much money you would save on that alone.
4. Transportation, I've serve both active duty and reserves. I and do know that there are federal contracts in place for civilians to haul our freight to just about anywhere in the world. I've hauled planning a freight for both active, reserve, National Guard, and every other service since 2001 to all points in the United States. With that said, I'm a retired civilian trucker with over 2.5 million mile safe driving so I know what I'm talking about on this issue. Rely more on the military transportation to haul from post to post CONUS. I'm not saying get rid of all civilian transportation, that's unrealistic. You can however dramatically reduce that give much-needed training to 88M's in dry van, refer, flatbed, oversized, and any other freight that you would need to move. They are already hazmat certified trained, and the new Freightliner's and Peterbilt's that are coming out now have great cost savings on fuel. Also, just think how much work load capacity you would reduce at the gates, shipping and receiving by checking them in?
5. KPs! Civilian KPs have been around in the military since I have since 1983. I don't want to take anyone's job especially theirs, they are some nice people, but let's face it, this is something we could do ourselves. This be some good corrective training, or something like that. I know are overworked, but the save our jobs we got to do what we have to do to save our jobs. We've all pulled KP before, why can't we do it again?
6. Post maintenance. I've seen a lot of rundown buildings on just about any post I've been to. I've also seen a lot of civilian contractors fixing up, painting or what ever to these buildings. Why are not extra duty personnel doing these? We used to do this all the time back in the 80s why not now? And again, Joe may be on extra duty, but guess what he just learned a new trade. How to be self-reliant, how to start a small business and home repair all off of extra duty.
Look, I'm not trying to be rough on any civilian. They are all patriots just like us. Deserving of our respect as long as they respected the Joe. With that said though, Joe comes first. We are here for Joe. Joe is the reason why we have them bases. Joe serves the Constitution and the people of the United States of America. I think it's only fair we give Joe every benefit of the doubt and the best support we can humanly possibly give even through these tough times of downsizing.
I know this was sort of like MOS specific but I think you know what I'm getting at and maybe it'll help leaders to critically think another MOS's
If there is any misspelling I am sorry, I am disabled and both my hands are numb so I try the best I can. Thank you for your time have a good night
With the drawdowns, the budget cuts, BRAC, I have some ideas that would save money and cut other things while enhancing training and preparing Joe for the civilian world. Now of course some laws would have to be changed in Congress or wherever you guys do that stuff that. But here they are:
1. Instead of cutting Joe, why not first cut the civilians? For example, I just left the wounded transition Battalion on Fort Carson. Out of that whole organization you only had one good civilian doctor in that organization. Why can't we fire them and replace them with green suit doctors? I know some people have their thing about green suit doctors, but I've been serving since 1983 and I trust them more than I do the white suits. And it enhances their training. Your pain in the green suits anyway, get them working.
3. Military installation route clearance. Fort Carson a great example. We don't get a lot of snow, but when we do we get it. Why are we contracting out to the city or private contractors to clear snow, sweeping streets or normal upkeep of the base installation when we have combat engineers that could do this? This would be awesome training for them, and real-world experience. Just think how much money you would save on that alone.
4. Transportation, I've serve both active duty and reserves. I and do know that there are federal contracts in place for civilians to haul our freight to just about anywhere in the world. I've hauled planning a freight for both active, reserve, National Guard, and every other service since 2001 to all points in the United States. With that said, I'm a retired civilian trucker with over 2.5 million mile safe driving so I know what I'm talking about on this issue. Rely more on the military transportation to haul from post to post CONUS. I'm not saying get rid of all civilian transportation, that's unrealistic. You can however dramatically reduce that give much-needed training to 88M's in dry van, refer, flatbed, oversized, and any other freight that you would need to move. They are already hazmat certified trained, and the new Freightliner's and Peterbilt's that are coming out now have great cost savings on fuel. Also, just think how much work load capacity you would reduce at the gates, shipping and receiving by checking them in?
5. KPs! Civilian KPs have been around in the military since I have since 1983. I don't want to take anyone's job especially theirs, they are some nice people, but let's face it, this is something we could do ourselves. This be some good corrective training, or something like that. I know are overworked, but the save our jobs we got to do what we have to do to save our jobs. We've all pulled KP before, why can't we do it again?
6. Post maintenance. I've seen a lot of rundown buildings on just about any post I've been to. I've also seen a lot of civilian contractors fixing up, painting or what ever to these buildings. Why are not extra duty personnel doing these? We used to do this all the time back in the 80s why not now? And again, Joe may be on extra duty, but guess what he just learned a new trade. How to be self-reliant, how to start a small business and home repair all off of extra duty.
Look, I'm not trying to be rough on any civilian. They are all patriots just like us. Deserving of our respect as long as they respected the Joe. With that said though, Joe comes first. We are here for Joe. Joe is the reason why we have them bases. Joe serves the Constitution and the people of the United States of America. I think it's only fair we give Joe every benefit of the doubt and the best support we can humanly possibly give even through these tough times of downsizing.
I know this was sort of like MOS specific but I think you know what I'm getting at and maybe it'll help leaders to critically think another MOS's
If there is any misspelling I am sorry, I am disabled and both my hands are numb so I try the best I can. Thank you for your time have a good night
Downsizing
Education
GS Civilians
Leadership
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 2
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Great ideas. I will say though that we as leaders must hold all accountable....even if those people are our civilian work force.
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I have been 21 yrs military, 2 yrs contractor and 14 Civil Service. I can see the arguments that will go against your ideas. Military retirement is expensive because we live long after our 20 years. Contractors are supposed to save money for short term jobs. GS jobs are for jobs that can not be contracted. When we took the budget cuts in military manpower, Congress counted our military member numbers... So the way they dodged Congressional intent that made use weak, was to bring in contractors and GS personnel. GS personnel can do some jobs that are gov type work, and does not require a trigger puller. Let's face it, do we need the BDE Cdr's secretary to be a soldier? It is important to keep trigger pullers doing military jobs, not civ jobs. BUT, I strongly agree with you that we need to have that tool that is not an Article 15 and permanent paperwork....but a motivation a and learning experience. Saturday morning painting buildings will make a better soldier on Monday morning!
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