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Should the Military take over functions currently run by Civilians? Considering my recent experience dealing with backstabbing Civilians, I think that they should reduce the Civilian Workforce and turn over certain functions bsck to Military control.
Posted in these groups: 
Civilians
Contractors
Civilians Contractors
Edited 12 y ago
Posted 12 y ago
Responses: 53
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cut them, the military was just fine many years ago without them and NCO's and officers were FORCED to be more professional, both Tactically and Technically. Now that the military has all of these civilians, people rely on them to do OUR jobs for us. Its great that there are jobs for us when we retire, but Soldiers need to take care of Soldiers. Civilians arent going to deploy with us, and they usually have that asshole attitude thinking we owe them something anyway. Well, we owe you a thank you, but ya know that big check you're taking home when a Soldier can get paid half, yeah, we can cut that...<br>
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I have had many thoughts on this topic for the last 10 years. As an Engineer, we were able to do projects for tennant units at one time. Build a sidewalk here, throw up some walls in an office there. All that changed around 2003 when contractors started supporting Garrisons while units deployed. Now, if an Engineer squad is caught fixing a sidewalk near a bowling alley on post, the Contractors will file a union grievance against the Army.
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SPC(P) (Join to see)
I'm deployed now, I'm in trans. working on the biggest military movement of equipment in history. One thing that gets me pissed off is I deployed to do a job, for my MOS I trained for. Yet I go on a mission, we can't do a thing cause we need a contractor to operate the equipment, we need a contractor to be the safety, and we need team of contractors to be the ground workers. Last time I checked, in the Army we are all safety officers, we can all operate the equipment since was trained on it. But 3 hrs later I'm sitting and waiting while I have all the soldiers to conduct said mission. It is a waste of time and government funds.
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<p>I would have to agree. The DOD employs over 800,000 civilians which amounts to one civilian for every two service members (of all branches). That number is considerably greater that any other federal department. Since the big topic in the news is slashing the DOD's budget, it makes a lot of sense to trim that number down by a few hundred thousand. Especially for positions that were created to give a former Officer/NCO a job when they retire. </p><p><br></p><p>For instance, there are many Commanding Generals with Deputy Commanders that aren't Army Officers at all, they're DA civilians. This has always puzzled me since AR 600-20 requires a Commander to be a uniform Officer. When that CG is gone, who is in charge? AR 600-20 prohibits that civilian from holding a Command position. Perhaps someone could shed some light on this?</p>
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SSgt GG-15 RET Jim Lint
I think you have not seen the whole Army. The Army Material Command is a 4 star command, just like FORSCOM and TRADOC. The CIV SES Deputies are normally quite competent and have years in the organization. In AMC most of the 2 star commands had Civ Deputies. In fact, my unit with a 2 star G.O. leading an 11,000 person organization, only had around 300 green suiters. The Chaplin Assistant was probably the junior enlisted. I never saw anyone junior to him. AMC and Research and Development Command have a lot of civil service employees...and contractors. Civil Service takes the leadership positions. In R&D, are you going to find a lot of PhD scientist? How many PhDs in your unit? I have seen some crazy units. I retired military and later retired Civ Service. I was the G-2 of a 2 star command...as a GG-15. I was surprised when I got hired, because I thought I was going to be a deputy.
Remember, the rest of the gov has ALL Civil Service and no Generals, the Directors are all GS and SES. I have worked at DHS and DOE. I worked directly for the Under Secretary, who was also a Civ at DoEnergy. I found out my 21 years of active duty did not teach me much about our Gov. I was amazed how much I learned after the military.
Remember, the rest of the gov has ALL Civil Service and no Generals, the Directors are all GS and SES. I have worked at DHS and DOE. I worked directly for the Under Secretary, who was also a Civ at DoEnergy. I found out my 21 years of active duty did not teach me much about our Gov. I was amazed how much I learned after the military.
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SSgt GG-15 RET Jim Lint
When RDECOM lost their 2 star.... a civil service SES was appointed by Sec Army and Commander AMC (4star) as the Director of RDECOM.
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My husband is an infantryman, and he got a contract with DynCorp back in 2011-2012 when they were still in Erbil, doing Diplomat Protections (high risk protections) at the US Consulate. Highly specialized and competitive job, all of his team members were former Rangers, SF, Marine Recon and the like. He felt like the low man on the totem pole, even though he has credentials of his own. I see these particular contracts as a good thing.
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SPC(P) (Join to see)
I support jobs like these, but I think we should have a company that is government owned or managed. An we hire former soldiers to do jobs such as these. Instead of going to private companies, cause that's when more money get put in their hands. Keep it in the family I say.
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Years ago I was an infantryman. I saw myself and members of my unit as trained professionals. The Army had invested a great deal of resources in not only our pay, but training and readiness. Equipment, maintenance, fuel, and ammunition are not cheap.
I see it as a complete waste of talent and money to have soldiers such as these performing tasks such as painting fences, mowing lawns, and collecting garbage.
If we can free up soldiers so that they can focus on the tasks that only soldiers can do, I call it a win.
If we only free them up so that they sit in the CP playing angry birds, that is not a win.
If there is a problem, it is not with the contractors but with our leaders not capitalizing on the opportunity.
I see it as a complete waste of talent and money to have soldiers such as these performing tasks such as painting fences, mowing lawns, and collecting garbage.
If we can free up soldiers so that they can focus on the tasks that only soldiers can do, I call it a win.
If we only free them up so that they sit in the CP playing angry birds, that is not a win.
If there is a problem, it is not with the contractors but with our leaders not capitalizing on the opportunity.
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I fully agree. Just take a look at the size of the paychecks some of these guys are getting to do a mundane task a Soldier could easily be trained to do. We've succeeded in downsizing the number of Soldiers on the ground while spending exorbitant amounts of money.
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Had a 2 star ask me once how we could fix the civil service system and I responded "Have the ability to fire on the spot". He replied "I agree but it will never happen". As long as civil service continues to reward incompetence and laziness, the system will never be fixed. Don't mean to brush stroke all civil servants as there are many hard working, dedicated civil servants but in my 30 plus years of experience working with civilians, have found many who are oxygen thieves. I was impressed with how the civil servants responded during Desert Shield/Storm but as the war dragged along, many returned to pre-war attitude. Sad that it takes a war to energize the workforce.
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From my experience I have seen good and bad civilians out there that means both DA civilians and contractors. One thing is for sure without our sacrifices and our service those civilians wouldn't have a job
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SSG Fleming, I work with federal employees on a daily basis, so I can understand your frustration. I think it's not so much the employees, but rather the federal employment system that we are saddled with. It is hard to get authorizations to hire and almost an act of God to fire. I am dealing with some civilians who, if they pulled the crap they did in a civilian setting, would have been fired on the spot. Challenges for sure.
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SSG Lorenzo, I somewhat agree with you. Although, there are backstabbers everywhere, yours happen to be a civilian. You will always have personality conflicts as it is human nature. People will always have difference in opinions, and differences in how people handle situations.
Here's where I agree. I came in the Army when we were mostly self-sufficiency. We ran our own chow halls, we mowed our own grass, and we maintained our own equipment. Rarely, you would have to run issues up your chain of command, so it would come back down through the issue's chain of command. Although there were civilians on base, there wasn't many. It was a different Army, and things really got done without all the red tape and sensitivity.
Unfortunately; over the years, our elected officials have created an environment in our military that makes us rely on a billion dollar industry that helps their friends get richer and donate hugely to their election funds. These are the same elected officials who scrutinize our pay, and how we do business when they have no idea what it means to serve in uniform.
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