Here is an article on the business of war: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-under-fire-over-war-contracts-195550994.html What was it that I heard WAR stood for one time? Waste And Regret. There definitely seems to be some waste of money according to this article.
CIA is a terrorist organization. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ-E--rmi3k"]War on Democracy - Guatemala - YouTube[/ame]
I would appreciate if both the above posters just don't post in any of my threads. They are both trolling and their comments are insulting. I am very proud to be an American and both of the posters comments are completely out of line. None of their posts contribute anything meaningful or productive to this discussion. I was simply posting on the reality that war is a business and that's any war that has been fought throughout history. And getting down to reality of war, there is a lot of waste and regret in any war. I, of course, as an American citizen also expect my government to use taxpayer dollars wisely and efficiently and it's reasonable for citizens to expect their government to use taxpayer dollars wisely and efficiently. I recognize though, that government does not always do this (that's any government) and a lot of taxpayer dollars go to waste. There is probably always going to be some waste when it comes to government spending taxpayer dollars, but that does not mean that government should not do it's best to be as efficient as possible and spend taxpayer dollars as wisely as possible.
Personally, I think a lot of this can be solved quickly and easily. Fire most of the contractors and DoD civilians that do this type of garbage, and let the military go back to doing this work themselves. Over the last 30 years, I have seen the military turned into a Civilian Jobs Program that is frankly disgusting and wastefull. We no longer have soldiers pulling KP, we hire civilians to do it. And we have all these construction engineers who can build bridges and dams, but instead have lowest bid contractors building crappy buildings. Heck, at my base the units are not even in charge of their own barracks, it is handled all by civilians. And the contractors in charge of the base housing is a UK contractor. If you want to see a lot of waste eliminated, get rid of the contractors and civilians. Put this type of stuff back in the hands of the military, where it belongs.
I agree 100%. Good post. From a business perspective, if political and military leaders implemented your suggestion, it would allow the military to operate better, more efficiently and save the taxpayers a lot of money. That would be more money that would go back into the taxpayers' pockets and the military would be more effective and efficient. Not to mention, I think we need to get rid of some of the fast food chains at military bases. Fast food joints provide very poor nutrition to military personnel and does not help the military with it's mission. Good nutrition is vitally important for the service members so that the military can achieve it's mission more efficiently and effectively. That's why allowing the military to decide the diet and serve the food to service members is a better idea. I am against the idea of fast food chains at military facilities and favor allowing the military and their dieticians and cooks to decide the diet and which foods are served to service members at military facilities.
I think a lot of the problem is not civilian contractors, but the DoD and Unions. If you look on military bases, probably 75% of the civilian jobs are union jobs. And the vast majority of DoD employees are also union members. They have taken the jobs away from the military, and placed it into the hands of civilian unions. This is nothing more then a work program for unions, plain and simple. As for the fast food, that would be a very bad idea. I know that many times, I have had to postpone meals for hours because of work requirements. And quite often, that means the only place I can eat is one of the fast food places on base. Chow halls are normally only open for about 90 minutes. And if they followed your idea, then we would often have no place to eat at all. And do you really think that the food served in the chow hall is all that different then that served at a Burger King?
The chow halls should be serving nutritious food to GIs and should be open longer (perhaps stay open when a main meal of the day isn't being served, a service member can stop in and grab something healthy to eat on the go). Fast food joints don't offer any food that has nutritional value and allowing those fast food joints onto bases just encourages bad eating habits in the service members. It just makes GIs fat and more difficult for them to meet weight and physical fitness requirements and the physical fitness standards in some branches of the military have gone up which means nutrition becomes that much more important. The military is there to fight and win wars, so it has to construct itself in a manner that enables it to do so in the most effective, efficient and cost effective way possible. Neglecting the nutritional needs of service members ultimately ends up costing the military and the taxpayers more money in the long term.
Hahahaha. That will happen. How do you get "nutritious" foods to the DFAC at BAF in Afghanistan at a low cost? How do you get nutritious foods to any DFAC on any base at a low cost? The 9-5 warriors that never manage to miss a meal will agree with you, but those of us that do not ride desks and only have a limited amount of time to eat do not.
The military is not a charity organization for private business and contractors. It's not a free ticket for anybody. The military is a lean, mean, fighting machine who have stakeholders: the American taxpayer. The military has a responsibility to it's stakeholders to ensure they run the business side of the house efficiently and effectively to accomplish the mission the military is paid to do: fight and win wars. It's better to pay a little bit more for nutritious food now than to pay a whole lot more later on having to kick out service members who fail physical fitness requirements and weight standards and then have to spend all that money to replace that service member. Not to mention the costs associated with being ineffective. Physical fitness helps tremendously for survival on the battlefield and big part of physical fitness is good nutrition.
I wouldn't call box nasties provided to air crews from the turn n' burn flightline DFAC... nutritious.
Do not forget about the baked "fish?" and chili mac. And they think antifreeze is the worst thing found in our bodies...
And you know about this from what? What is your experience in this area? The military is often a 24 hour occupation. I often have to report in before 5am, and do not get off work until after 8pm. There is no way I would ever endorse having chow halls open those times (other then some bases overseas). You would be asking the personnel that worked there to be at work at 2am, and work until 10pm. No way. And no, fast food does not "make GIs fatter". Most of us have such high energy jobs that it is hard to gain weight at all. And our diets reflect this. High in starches, high in calories. Just look at an MRE and compare it to a Big Mac Value Meal. Menu 1: 1,300 calories, 54g fat, 194g carbs, 31g protein, 1,470mg sodium Menu 2: 1,250 calories, 58g fat, 200g carbs, 28g protein, 1,800mg soduim Now tell me, which is the most healthy? Well, if you guess Menu 1, you are picking a Big Mac Value Meal, Large. If you pick Menu 2, you are picking a Beef Patty MRE. And most MREs come in right around the same when it comes to nutrition. We consume more calories and other "bad things", because we have a much higher operational demand. A diet that would put most people into Weight Watchers sometimes barely keeps us going. When I was a young Infantryman, I would think nothing of eating a Triple Whopper with Heavy Bacon, 2 large orders of fries, and several large sodas. However, I rarely weighed over 175, and even on a "light day" at work I would run 5 miles. Today my meals are much more modest, but I still do more exercise then probably 70% of people my age. 3-4 mile powerwalks are part of my morning routine, as opposed to most people my age who maybe walk that far in a week. So what is unhealthy to the vast majority of civilians is actually about right to most in the military. The danger of a high calorie meal and gaining weight is not the number of calories taken in, but the number taken in compared to the number expended in normal daily activity.
Maybe this real-life experience will show exactly how much food we take in on a daily basis in the military. When I was 26, I consumed huge amounts of food. I was a Marine Infantry Rifleman, and would have easily won eating competitions. Double and triple meat burgers were my normal lunch fare, as well as huge amounts of regular sodas. I would hate to think of what the calorie intake was, but my normal daily routine of 5-6 mile runs and jogs between buildings and 13-25 mile forced marches made sure I rarely weighed above 170. Then in 1990, I had a motorcycle accident that blew out my right knee. Between October and December I went from 170 to over 220. It was not the amount of food I took in that made me fat (and I did decrease it), but the reduction in my burning of calories. After that, I made some adjustments. I switched to diet soda, ate smaller portions, and started taking walks to replace my runs. Within a year I was back down to 180. 17 years later when I went back in the service, my food intake increased again. Not to the degree that it was 20+ years earlier, but higher then when I was a civilian. And since 2007 I have maintained a pretty steady 200 lbs. With a diet that would see most civilians my age topping over 300 lbs. You would do well to listen to some of us here that are actually in or recently out of the military. We have first-hand experience in this. It is easy to criticize when looking in from the outside. Actually being on the inside, you see something very different then you seem to believe. And to give an example, last month and this month I am spending my work week out at White Sands Missile Range. For breakfast, I normally have scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon, hash browns, biscuts and gravy, and citrus juice. Lunch is normally an MRE. A typical dinner is a double cheeseburger and fries, or a sliced or chipped beef main course covered in gravy, with potatoes or rice, as well as a veggie. And of course the sides like bread, and desert (Otis Spunkmyer cookies). This is a weight gain diet for the vast majority of people, let alone somebody who is 46. For me, it is just about right. And the main courses I listed are typical for chow halls. Morning meals is normally eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns, biscuts and gravy (SOS), and a doughnut. Lunch is typically hamburgers, hotdogs, or a meat and gravy type meal. Dinner is typically the same as lunch. We are high energy machines. Many times there have been attempts to "fix" our diets. And generally they are failures. I remember attempts at this, and always hated when they happened.
Personally, I don't think the DFAC should be providing those kinds of meals. The meals should be more nutritious and no fast food on military facilities. Now, if GIs, on their own free will, choose to eat fast food off the military facility, then that's their choice, but if they fail height and weight standards, physical fitness standards, those GIs should be given the boot. It would be their own fault and the military did it's part in insuring nutritious food was available and encouraging physical fitness. However, by making these fast food joints available on military facilities, the military and these fast food joints are not helping the soldiers stay physically fit and physical fitness is crucial for the service members, especially the front line fighters where everything that he does is a matter of life and death. All in all, the military is not there to be profitable for contractors and private business. It's there to fight and win wars efficiently, quickly and cost effectively for their stakeholders: the taxpayers. The military is there to be profitable for the taxpayers by also being cost effective and efficient. I am a big proponent in investing in the military, because investment in the military enhances deterrence and discourages potential enemies from attacking our nation. Anytime a nation is forced into fighting a war, it is very costly financially to the taxpayer and of course the social and human costs are very high too. So deterrence becomes very important to looking out for the best interests of the military's stakeholders (the taxpayers). One of the best ways to prevent wars is to prepare for war and the more effective, efficient a military is, the more likely a war is prevented, which again, saves the taxpayers a lot of money. But in order to save a whole lot of money in the long term, the taxpayers will have to pay and invest some money in the short term. It takes money to make money.
I was unaware that the food I get from the DFAC was negatively affecting my height. Please share some other nuggets from the mountain of health. You can start with answering my inquiry about how much your "nutritious" overhaul will cost and how you plan on going about doing it.
Oh God, here comes the "Political Corectness Police". The same kind of mindset that tells schools they can't sell Kool-aid and prevents mothers from sending sack lunches to school because they are "unhealthy" is now trying to get involved in how our military eats. Get this, and understand it evil one. Our military is made up of adults. We are all adults, and have the right to decide where we eat, and what we eat. And here is another FYI. Most bases are having to cut back on their chow halls. Fort Bliss has gone from 3 to 2, to now we only have 1 chow hall left on post. When I go to lunch, other soldiers I work with rarely say "Hey, let's go to the chow hall!" Why? Because it is generic cafeteria style food, and if you are married it is just as cheap to eat elsewhere. It does not matter what you think. Are you in uniform? Have you been in uniform? If so, where did you eat and what did you eat? Yea, every chow hall has a salad bar. Guess what, hardly anybody eats from it. Because it just does not give us the energy rich foods we need to do our jobs. Yes, the food police have spoken. And guess what? If they fail to meet PT standards, or weight/body fat standards, they are kicked out. Nothing new there, it has been that way for decades. And since the Immaculate One came in, that has only increased. I have seen more people kicked out in the last year then I have in the 3 years before. Because the Army has to cut numbers, so some of those that are booted fail to meet standards. In the Army, we PT every day. I am not sure what else can be done to encourage physical fitness. If soldiers are fat, that is 98% their own fault. It is all of their choices made, not just where they eat. That is generally a combination of over-eating and lack of exercise. The fast food places serve more then military by the way. When I do go there, about half of the customers are civilians. Either family of military members, or civilians that work on base. Take them off base, now we spend more money and time. Driving off post, more gas useage. And of course a BK out in town costs more then one on post. In fact, one of the big pushes overseas is to try and get more fast food places onto the bases. You seem to have no idea how much good for morale it is for somebody in the sandbox to take a break from the chow hall on occasion and eat a Pizza Hut pizza, or get a cone from Baskin-Robbins. So you want to strip away one of the few actual enjoyments that we had when we are overseas in hell for a year. Seems more to me like you are a big proponant in meddling in the personal affairs of people in the military. Here, let me say this clearly. The military is not your social experiment. We are all adults. We choose where to eat, and what to eat. It already makes me sick when I see the "Kitchen Police" going around forcing our kids in school to eat only things they think should be served. Now we see that kind of mindset trying to behave that way to our military. Let's try a random survey. You select 100,000 civilians at random, and look at their diets. Get height and weight and body fat figures. Compare their calories taken in compared to their calories expended. Then I will take 100,000 military members and do the same statistics. Wanna guess which will score better? By far? Trust me, it will not even be close. Instead of trying to close such on base (which actually makes the DoD money), why not try to cut out what is wastefull. The military gets money from the fast food establishments, in the way of rent. You keep going on and on about this, and this is not the problem. The DoD does not pay for the fast food place, it does not pay their employees.
As far as I was aware, 98% of those that join the military were already at their full height before they even joined. I was 5'9" when I first joined the Marines at the age of 18 in 1983. Here it is 27 years later. I am almost 47, and still come in at 5'9". Maybe I would have kept growing after I turned 19 if not for that nasty chow hall food.
I cannot provide any figures Up On Governor, but what I can say is that healthy eating though more costlier initially, prevents much more costlier medical bills later on in the future for anybody who chooses to eat healthy. For the average joe (as any ordinary person), medical bills can be astronomically expensive and healthy eating (though initially expensive) helps to prevent massively more expensive medical bills later on. Healthy eating will enable troops to more easily meet weight and physical fitness standards which in turn will help them become more combat effective. Diet is extremely important for the warrior, not for just helping to meet weight and physical fitness standards, but also to remain mentally sound and tough. I think the military would benefit by investing in healthy food and making it more readily available for troops. I personally am against the idea of fast food joints on military facilities. I also believe by making healthier food more readily available for military members and by discouraging bad eating habits, it will ultimately in the long term save the military and the taxpayers money. In addition, any money spent which enhances deterrence and prevents the costs of having to fight a war because deterrence failed, is money well spent. The financial, social and human costs of having to fight a war because deterrence failed can also be astronomical in an analogous way that medical bills for the average joe can be astronomical. Just my two cents.
