What is the most ridiculous "cost saving effort" that you deal with in the Army?

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 14:59:16 -0500

The one I hate the most is the turn in of blank ammo brass. During any type of training that is not on a range, finding expended blank ammo casings is a complete waste of time.

Response by SCPO Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 28 at 2016 3:04 PM

SCPO Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 15:04:24 -0500

You took the one I remembered. We did have a CSM who was huge on recycling stuff in the Battalion office. BTW, this was during my Army Reserves years...if you wonder why the photo doesn't match!!!

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Feb 28 at 2016 6:53 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 18:53:36 -0500

Giving a small increase in pay and giving a small decrease in BAH.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 29 at 2016 11:52 AM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 11:52:52 -0500

Being told to use regular dirt instead of dry sweep to clean up fuel/oil spills.

Response by SSG Ken Gilder made Mar 1 at 2016 6:27 AM

SSG Ken Gilder — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 06:27:19 -0500

Turning over Army lodging to the same people that run Holiday Inns. Staying at an Army guest facility costs nearly twice as much as staying at an Air Force Inn, for a comparable room.

Response by SSG Ken Gilder made Mar 1 at 2016 6:27 AM

SSG Ken Gilder — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 06:27:57 -0500

Turning over Army lodging to the same people that run Holiday Inns. Staying at an Army guest facility costs nearly twice as much as staying at an Air Force Inn, for a comparable room.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 7:00 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 07:00:27 -0500

Automatic lights that turn off after a short timer. We've all had to deal with turn in the latrines. My facility also has them installed in our cold storage buildings. We can be on top of a HEMTT and the lights will turn off, leaving us in complete darkness. The motion sensors aren't very good, so it can take a lot to turn them off, and we are out of the detection range working on the truck anyways. This is not only a huge annoyance but also a dangerous working hazard.

Response by COL R. Bruce Chisholm made Mar 1 at 2016 8:30 AM

COL R. Bruce Chisholm — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 08:30:04 -0500

First Sergeant, if I remember from my Fort Benning days (1982-1983): brass recovery was instituted after it was found some locals and Soldiers were getting rich from recycling/reselling brass and ammo cans. We had to turn everything back to ASP including the wooden crates the cans came in.
BTW, There's a creek there that has ALOT of M60 blanks, still in the cans, where we'd toss them rather than carry them on the march out to the training area.

Response by SGT Steven Potter made Mar 1 at 2016 9:58 AM

SGT Steven Potter — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 09:58:19 -0500

CARDBOARD DOORS ON THE SHOOT HOUSE AT FT. RILEY. THEN RANGE CONTROL GETTING MAD BECAUSE PVT'S PUTTING THEIR FOOT THROUGH THEM WHEN THEY WERE CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT AND A LITTLE OVER-ZEALOUS WHEN ENTERING ROOMS. SMFH.

Response by SGM Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 11:21 AM

SGM Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 11:21:46 -0500

I can think of some bigger wastes that need to be address.

-Computer issues-time lost waiting for computers to work.
-ALARACTS like the "Sexual Harassment and Prevention" one that lumps DUI with sex offenders which is ruining great Soldier careers. I do not believe that DUI should ruin careers. If they don't learn, stake them down but people are human and make mistakes.
-Spending hours on the phone with LHI because they cannot come up with an automated computer system that works more efficiently.

Lets fight battles that make sense. Brass at the bottom of my list. Yes, clean up the range and leave it better than you found it.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 2:30 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:30:13 -0500

Well, this is a bit dated when I was a Specialist.

During Desert Storm we received several pallets of plywood that were donated from Indonesia, many nations didn't send troops but supplies or equipment, as Indonesia did. Being in 1-75 Ranger BN we used the plywood to build mock buildings for missions and shot them up.

Sri Lanka had some F15 pilots in an exchange program with Saudi Arabia prior to Desert Shield/Storm, and once the war kicked off they were left as a part of the program. Saudi Arabia however pulled their pilots back and put them in planes. This left the Sri Lankan's without a job, and then they were moved out of their barracks at the airfield we were on. This was right at the end of the conflict and left them in tents with no floors for the 2-3 weeks until they flew home.

We were in the process of tearing down the mock village we had built and had the plywood stacked, most of it shot-up. The Sri Lankan officers asked if they could have some to floor their tents with, and I was on guard then. I will never forget that the US logistics officer that we called to assist them told them that they could not have it as it was US property and we had to ship it back with us the following day. I was incredulous the insensitivity of this inane-bureaucratic decision.

The following day I was even more incensed to see a detail loading this junk plywood, that was not US property but an Indonesian donation, being loaded onto a C141, and it was almost the entire aircraft full of junk plywood...

What made it worse was when we returned home about a week later, my roommate was on the detail to dispose of the plywood...so the US military spent how many tens of thousands of dollars to fly back shot-up plywood from Saudi Arabia to the US just to dispose of it....rather than show compassion to fellow combatants...

And the reason given was that it would have wasted money to leave it in Saudi Arabia.

Response by 1SG R C made Mar 1 at 2016 2:51 PM

1SG R C — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:51:44 -0500

1SG, first and foremost brass cost money therefore recycling the eventually helps. Imagine the amount of brass we expend every day. Secondly, we do have an environmental responsibility. If you think about the cradle to grave production (finding the metals, excavation, cost of fuels to do the work, the manufacturing process etc. the cost is very high. Why waste a resource when recycling it makes sense.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 4:11 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 16:11:09 -0500

I know that where I am stationed, the brass is sold at auction to the highest bidder to bring back some money.

The most ridiculous cost saving effort to me is the uniform change from BDU to ACU. I could go on and on about that but I'll just end it there.

Response by SPC Byron Skinner made Mar 2 at 2016 12:50 AM

SPC Byron Skinner — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 00:50:01 -0500

Sp4 Byron Skinner. Back in the Vietnam era if brass collection detail was asked for the the response to the person giving such a stupid order would f__K you. what are going to do send me to Vietnam? The response by the 1st. Sgt. about brass costing money is not correct. The price of the service persons labor far out weights the cost of the collected brass. A more efficient and cost saving way of doing this is to hire an outside contractor. The time not spent collecting brass could be devoted to more range time or on exercised longer to critique the exercise. Soldiers are not free labor and there is no such thing as over training. The closing price of copper today, the valuable part of brass which is basically if I recall my HS Chemistry class brass is copper and tin was 2.1514lb, the salvage price is usual half of cost or a 1.0807lb.. how many 5.56mm cartage casings are in a pound?

Response by SFC Jim Hunter made Mar 2 at 2016 2:03 AM

SFC Jim Hunter — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 02:03:54 -0500

I have a worse example. After a firefight in Vietnam we were told to go outside the wire and pickup brass.

Response by CPL Scott Locke made Mar 2 at 2016 7:53 AM

CPL Scott Locke — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 07:53:54 -0500

I do not believe this is a waist of time at all. There are several reasons for picking up expended casings.
1) It is waist at this point. Pick it up and leave the area cleaner than it was when you arrived. Your thought process is the same reason that the inner cities are so polluted. Are you the person that walks by trash in the street or the one that picks it up.
2) It leaves a fresh training area for the next soldier. What would your experience be if you came to train in an area that was covered in used brass. My guess is, not that authentic or relative to an actual true battle situation.
3) What is the effect on the wildlife and vegetation?

This is just not a chore for you. You have a responsibility to clean up after yourself. It is what we do as soldiers

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 2 at 2016 9:18 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 09:18:21 -0500

Taking out the Tabasco sauce bottles in MREs!

Response by SFC Ernest Thurston made Mar 2 at 2016 11:44 AM

SFC Ernest Thurston — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 11:44:39 -0500

In Korea we didn't have that problem. There were always kids running around collecting the brass to sell or recycle. I remember a kid running along side of my HMMWV catching hot brass flying out of my M60 and putting it in an old sand bag that he also picked up in the training area.
Now, will go on my rant :-)
When they started closing down bases in Europe, thinking that the Germans would buy it all back from us. Instead we had to do all kinds of environmental corrections and basically pay them to take it back. It's because politicians forgot that after fifty years Germany was no longer an occupied country where we could do what ever we wanted they were an independent country with their own set of laws.
In way this links to policing up the brass after training. What happens fifty years later when the government ends the lease on the land and it reverts to the local government or the private land owner. Just ask what happened at Ft McClellan, AL. It was designated an EPA Super Fund site. The land was contaminated after years and years of training and dumping chemicals because the land wasn't occupied. I'm not one of those environmental wackos and I don't think leaving brass laying around is going to hurt anything, but we do need to make sure we aren't just using the land and dumping anything we want anywhere we want.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 2 at 2016 2:36 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 14:36:26 -0500

Online mandatory training

Response by COL Jon Thompson made Mar 5 at 2016 7:07 PM

COL Jon Thompson — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 19:07:35 -0500

I spent an AT in Germany on a V Corps Warfighter Exercise. We were a small PSYOP Battalion staff attached to V Corps. We did not have our own barracks so we were spread out and there was no TP in the latrines. Units gave out individual rolls to their own Soldiers. Since we had no logistical tail there, we were stuck using MRE TP or whatever else we could find. Finding an almost empty roll was a godsend.

Response by 1SG Michael Blount made Mar 18 at 2016 8:36 AM

1SG Michael Blount — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 08:36:21 -0400

Consolidating Class A, Dress White and Dress Blue uniforms into a whole NEW uniform - the ASU - that everyone was required to have. Why not just have done away with the Dress Whites and Blues and go to the Class A's, which everyone's had since Basic?

Response by SPC Byron Skinner made Dec 8 at 2016 1:18 PM

SPC Byron Skinner — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 13:18:04 -0500

Sp4 Byron Skinner…The issue of policing brass. The soldiers are correct it is a waste of time, time better spent reviewing the training exercise. The Army contracts our reclamation and recycling of brass to a contractor. The Army does not resell the brass, it cost to much. The issue of reloading military brass, forget about it. The architecture of military shell casings is different from that of shell casing made for the civilian market thus military shell casings cannot be reloaded for sale on the civilian market…What things like policing brass or painting rocks say that the Army is not efficiently using a soldiers time. In entry training and AIT at least 20% of a soldiers time is take up with these needless activities. That is time that could be better used in the field or in a classroom being brought up to date on weapons platforms or weapons systems…The picture above illustrates this problem quite well. An officer is doing a job that could be done by a range safety NCO at a greatly reduced labor cost. I', sure that officer has more productive worn he can be doing the running a cleaning rod up a rifle barrel to verify that there is no round in the chamber.