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I spent 8 years on active duty. Navy. 1963-71.
Going in after high school was absolutely the best decision of my life. I got out as E-6, Electronic Technician.
Here 'tis:
How much money could be saved if there was only one US Service? The American Defense Force would have 3 branches - Land, Air, Sea. But only one boot camp format, one rank structure, one basic uniform. Many occupations would simply be a matter of assignment - clerical, medical, meal prep, some mechanical occupations, procurement and etc. Other occupations would be a bit more specific and would not be transferable - ship propulsion, submarine, B-52 pilot, field artillery. Others would be blended into one - special forces, medic, and several others whereas now each service trains their own.
Need more for Sea, and less for Air?.... Transfer people.
It would be a strange turn of events. But I can see where it would save a ton of money.
Canada tried this in the 1960s, it didn't really work. It led to major morale problems when "Maritime Command" members had to use "army ranks". It's been largely reversed and they've returned to their historic names (Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force), branch specific service uniforms (green for the Army, dark blue for RCN, medium blue for RCAF), and British style rank insignia. The only thing they've kept is universal basic training and RCAF control over helicopters and flight crews on RCN vessels.
That said, I do support standardization of small arms and camouflage uniforms. There should be one pattern of camouflage per environment (desert, woodland, etc) for all services
I had an odd feeling during my last duty station. I was stationed in Italy, wearing a badge, carrying a gun, in charge of 40 MPs. In accordance with the SOFA [Status of Forces Argeement], we operate full legal jurisdiction over all conquered lands. Just as if we had beaten Hitler and Mussolini last week [and not 50 years ago]. I felt like a Roman Centurion walking on foreign soil, the locals were focusing on their lives, but I carried the weapons and even the local Italian Policia had to bow to my authority.
We conquer these places and make them sign treaties giving the US legal jurisdiction over them and we setup military bases, but then we never leave. And in the meantime we spend a lot of our taxes to subsidize those nations.
The only difference is the Romans extracted massive amounts of wealth from the conquered nations, were as we are depleting our own nation to pump money in. I am not sure what the motivation is or what the elites angle is.
Once the USA falls apart, which it is doing now, then we loose all influence.
Besides closing foreign bases, another thing that could help to save money is to allow each command the ability and authority to purchase non military equipment materials in local area businesses. For example, traditional hand or power tools, flashlights, ink pens, toilet paper, and many other items that aren’t related to military specific equipment or duties. There were times on the ship working in the engine room at home port it was faster and easier to go to Sears or Walmart to buy replacement hand tools out of our own pockets. We could have purchased slightly more expensive but better quality tools if we could have accessed department funds for these purchases and still have come in far less than half the price the military supply system charged.
Something else that bothered me as a waste was the end of the fiscal year spending spree. “We have to spend the money or we will get less in the next fiscal year budget. When this happens what the money is being spent on is not what is truly needed by the department. This is a wrong headed approach that needs to go away. Problem is it seems to be a fully entrenched philosophy among officers and executives. One idea is to set up an emergency fund account and transfer the remaining balance to this fund requiring a higher level of authority for approval to be used for purchases above and beyond the normal departmental budget. Once this fund reaches a balance greater than the annual budget then it can be transferred back to the regular budget and no new funds given to the department for that fiscal year since they already have what they need. Another idea is to crack down on the practice of spending everything at the last minute. Stop the wasteful spending. You still get your funds for the next fiscal year minus the dollar amount remaining in your budget.
I served on a flag ship out of Gaeta Italy. We weren’t a military ship. We were the Admiral’s private party barge to hold diplomatic dinner parties at foreign ports with extremely expensive booze and food provided by the local USA embassy via the US State Department budget. If our ship had been attacked the best we could do is call for help. Most of the weapons the ship once had were removed for communications systems. For what our military job was at the time, it could have all been done from a shore base inside the USA.
Or if you need to make a large capital expenditure just apply for it, I never understood why they could not do this.
I also never understood why certian programs (like tank building, apache building, etc) were not brought in as govt GS employees in order to maintain continuity of building war machines. These are unique civilian skill sets that we as a nation cant afford to just let go of. Once these people are all laid off and, very painfully, move on to other things do you think you will get them back?
Canada tried this in the 1960s, it didn't really work. It led to major morale problems when "Maritime Command" members had to use "army ranks". It's been largely reversed and they've returned to their historic names (Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force), branch specific service uniforms (green for the Army, dark blue for RCN, medium blue for RCAF), and British style rank insignia. The only thing they've kept is universal basic training and RCAF control over helicopters and flight crews on RCN vessels.
That said, I do support standardization of small arms and camouflage uniforms. There should be one pattern of camouflage per environment (desert, woodland, etc) for all services
Also could you imagine taking a fighter pilot and telling him he is now infantry lol. I could see alot of people paper working out of the military.
Also could you imagine taking a fighter pilot and telling him he is now infantry lol. I could see alot of people paper working out of the military.
Of course, no one in his right mind is advocating such a thing. Some occupations are simply not transferable.
But I can see how food preparation people and supply procurement people and administrative people could be trained in one system and used wherever they wished to be used or wherever they needed to be used. As it is now, training is done in dozens of places and no 2 services use the same system.
In my world, Army style ranks would be used everywhere and initial boot camp would be 4 or 5 weeks of generic military training (and weeding out) and then the candidates would be split up.
I, for instance, went off to basic electronics training. I was trained in naval electronics, but could never be used by the army or the air force. That seems like a waste, and there are many, many occupations that fall in the same category. Medics?........ All the same job, but three different systems (The Marine Corps use navy corpsmen).
We train SEALs in one place, Army Special Forces in another, and other special units are all by themselves.
Of course, no one in his right mind is advocating such a thing. Some occupations are simply not transferable.
But I can see how food preparation people and supply procurement people and administrative people could be trained in one system and used wherever they wished to be used or wherever they needed to be used. As it is now, training is done in dozens of places and no 2 services use the same system.
In my world, Army style ranks would be used everywhere and initial boot camp would be 4 or 5 weeks of generic military training (and weeding out) and then the candidates would be split up.
I, for instance, went off to basic electronics training. I was trained in naval electronics, but could never be used by the army or the air force. That seems like a waste, and there are many, many occupations that fall in the same category. Medics?........ All the same job, but three different systems (The Marine Corps use navy corpsmen).
We train SEALs in one place, Army Special Forces in another, and other special units are all by themselves.
Seems like a waste.
But they are different, they do things differently, therefore they train differently. There are areas where they do share training though, for example, SEALs do go to the advance Army medical training at Ft. Bragg.
Your Army style ranks would of course throw dirt in the face of hundreds of years of tradition for the Navy. Maybe we can just toss ranks out all together and just call everyone by their pay grade?
The branches use different electronics, so why would they have the same training? The only training that would be the same is electronic theory, but after that, equipment operations are different. To consolidate something as mundane as electronic theory training would be a huge waste of funds.
Medics do different jobs, the theory of course is the same, but the operational environment is different, and as I mentioned, when the paths do cross, they do attend the same training.
Also could you imagine taking a fighter pilot and telling him he is now infantry lol. I could see alot of people paper working out of the military.
It happens all the time, and there is little one can do in one's career to change it. It happened to me. I was an A-10 pilot one day and the next I'm off to AGOS to learn to be an air liaison officer in an Army brigade. The reward afterwards was an F-16 assignment. Was I pissed? Sure was, it took me out of an MDS I totally loved and put me with... the Army. Ugh. Great career move, though, and built in me a huge respect for the Army. The proverbial double-edged sword, I alternately hated it (especially going to NTC) and loved it (I was making a difference). Some officers got so disenfranchised they quit after an ALO tour, but they were rare, most understood there was a need for them and that they would be rewarded with the assignment of choice as a follow-on; in fact, I know of only one ALO who did not get his next choice of aircraft and top 3 bases of choice, and he had a DWI hanging over his head from his previous assignment.
In my AGOS class we had Marines FACs and Navy ANGLICOs learning the TACS/AAGS along with Army artillery personnel; the first few weeks we were all in the same classroom learning about each others' specialties before going out to then employ service-doctrinally.
Of course, it's unlikely that an F-15 mechanic would be taken off the flight line and cross-trained into special ops as a door gunner/PJ in an MH-60 involuntarily; there is a lot of training and expertise for both career fields, that's where the money is spent. It can be done, however, as it was for my wife's cousin's ex as part of a voluntary career shift.
But they are different, they do things differently, therefore they train differently. There are areas where they do share training though, for example, SEALs do go to the advance Army medical training at Ft. Bragg.
Your Army style ranks would of course throw dirt in the face of hundreds of years of tradition for the Navy. Maybe we can just toss ranks out all together and just call everyone by their pay grade?
The branches use different electronics, so why would they have the same training? The only training that would be the same is electronic theory, but after that, equipment operations are different. To consolidate something as mundane as electronic theory training would be a huge waste of funds.
Medics do different jobs, the theory of course is the same, but the operational environment is different, and as I mentioned, when the paths do cross, they do attend the same training.
I have flown with an A-10 pilot who previously was an A-4 and S-3 pilot in the Navy, and transferred to the USAF. It was tough to get him to say "left" and "right" instead of "port" and "starboard". As an aviator, he had the skills already, so learning the Hog was just learning a new aircraft, same as it was for me to transition from the A-10 to the OV-10 or F-16. Going the other way, however, is different... learning a carrier landing would be much more challenging for an F-16 pilot transitioning as an exchange or transfer pilot to the F/A-18.
It happens all the time, and there is little one can do in one's career to change it. It happened to me. I was an A-10 pilot one day and the next I'm off to AGOS to learn to be an air liaison officer in an Army brigade. The reward afterwards was an F-16 assignment. Was I pissed? Sure was, it took me out of an MDS I totally loved and put me with... the Army. Ugh. Great career move, though, and built in me a huge respect for the Army. The proverbial double-edged sword, I alternately hated it (especially going to NTC) and loved it (I was making a difference). Some officers got so disenfranchised they quit after an ALO tour, but they were rare, most understood there was a need for them and that they would be rewarded with the assignment of choice as a follow-on; in fact, I know of only one ALO who did not get his next choice of aircraft and top 3 bases of choice, and he had a DWI hanging over his head from his previous assignment.
In my AGOS class we had Marines FACs and Navy ANGLICOs learning the TACS/AAGS along with Army artillery personnel; the first few weeks we were all in the same classroom learning about each others' specialties before going out to then employ service-doctrinally.
Of course, it's unlikely that an F-15 mechanic would be taken off the flight line and cross-trained into special ops as a door gunner/PJ in an MH-60 involuntarily; there is a lot of training and expertise for both career fields, that's where the money is spent. It can be done, however, as it was for my wife's cousin's ex as part of a voluntary career shift.
Knowing that you were going to get a choice later on makes all the difference. If they had just pulled people out and made them do something they didnt want to do with no knowledge what so ever they would be going to a better air frame you would see more people paper work out as soon as practical. I would imagine most would paper work out.
But they are different, they do things differently, therefore they train differently. There are areas where they do share training though, for example, SEALs do go to the advance Army medical training at Ft. Bragg.
Your Army style ranks would of course throw dirt in the face of hundreds of years of tradition for the Navy. Maybe we can just toss ranks out all together and just call everyone by their pay grade?
The branches use different electronics, so why would they have the same training? The only training that would be the same is electronic theory, but after that, equipment operations are different. To consolidate something as mundane as electronic theory training would be a huge waste of funds.
Medics do different jobs, the theory of course is the same, but the operational environment is different, and as I mentioned, when the paths do cross, they do attend the same training.
Tradition is the thing that makes the navy hard to take, sometimes. Scrapping a lot of what is traditional would do wonders to make the navy more palatable. No one is "throwing dirt". Just changes. When Seaman 2nd class and Seaman 1st Class were abandoned for more modern titles, no one was injured.
I was exceptionally well trained in electronics - 2 solid years of school - and I can assure you that my initial specialty of radar technician would be easily used by either air force or army.
Later, as I made E-6, I became responsible for communications and radar. Train me in one radar, I can learn them all; train me in one radio, I can learn them all.
I think there is an awful lot of room for improved efficiency in national defense.
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