Posted on Dec 4, 2020
Joint Chiefs chairman says permanent basing overseas needs reconsideration
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Edited 4 y ago
Posted 4 y ago
Responses: 4
I can visualize that. My question is: how will that affect troop structure? A rotation basis will require a higher number of folks to sustain operations. But in theory, it makes a lot of sense. Who knows?
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MAJ Javier Rivera
GySgt Thomas Vick
Infrastructure? Must definitely. Personnel? I’m 50/50 on that one. To sustain rotations on most of all of the currents, not to say all, commitments we have requires a lot of souls. Between the boots on the ground (on rotations), those getting ready for, and the one that finished the rotations. Then we have the generating force consisting of recruiting and training, not as big but an important chunk of folks. Let along the institutional force consisting of all other admin that I cannot remember. That goes for all service components.
Infrastructure? Must definitely. Personnel? I’m 50/50 on that one. To sustain rotations on most of all of the currents, not to say all, commitments we have requires a lot of souls. Between the boots on the ground (on rotations), those getting ready for, and the one that finished the rotations. Then we have the generating force consisting of recruiting and training, not as big but an important chunk of folks. Let along the institutional force consisting of all other admin that I cannot remember. That goes for all service components.
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There are some serious issues at play here. We do have issues with families living overseas in potential conflict zones. I served 7+ years in Europe and had to deal with family issues and the potential of NEO evacuations. It would have been a total mess to evacuate our families had there been a war in Europe. On the other hand, saying goodbye to one's family for a long tour overseas is a huge morale problem. Military life is hard enough, now throw in the notion that every overseas tour is unaccompanied? Bad idea. Also, if we have no permanent bases overseas, then we must be able to transport our units and their gear on short notice to overseas contingencies. We have nowhere near the aerial and maritime transport we need to do that now, and obtaining it is probably not within current budget projections. We're already short of force structure for many contingencies, and cannot afford to shed fighting strength for more transport, unless we have a large budget increase. I've been involved with and studied contingency deployment issues for several years, and I'm not sure how we fix this. Without existing permanent basing arrangements, how do we know where we will deploy our units?
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