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You might want to check how long those military working hours are in reality.
Downrange might be one thing, but other than that, hardly.
I work on a base. Every month there's a 4 day "training holiday" where no training takes place. This is in addition to their rather generous leave policy. There is additional block leave after redeployment.
Work ethic? Spare me.
We hire retired military and they're more "retired in place" than not.
Are they all like that? Of course not; but a higher than average number are.
I've also worked with numerous excellent retired military, but that's not most of them.
It's mostly like life on the outside, a % excellent employees; a % crappy employees; and the rest middle of the road.
2-3 months to outprocess when it takes about a week, including time to ship your goods and vehicle.
It is laughable.
I guess not all soldiers work as hard as the soldiers I see. The officer's schedules I witness are 10-12 hours a day. Yes, in my opinion they have a pretty intense work schedule.
Civilians in positions on base. Thats another story. Many of them have no concept of work ethic. Just from my limited observation on some bases where the non- green suiters seem to place their coffee break as just as high in value as their work tasks.
I guess a lot of you have seen or experienced soldier's schedules that are pretty paltry. I have a hard time imagining that their schedule and work demands have been so low-pressure thru their entire career.
Given that at some point we have to choose between our own nation's needs and policing the world so that other nations can have huge economic booms, I'd much rather spend our tax dollars here. For one thing, tax dollars flowing overseas have ZERO multiplier effect, while tax dollars spent here will recirculate in the economy.
We already don't police our own borders, so the "Defense" budget now consumes huge amounts of money without defending us at all. I don't think invading foreign nations and shooting and bombing them in their own territories makes us "safer" in any way, shape or form. We should have just enough of a military to defend our borders, period.
I guess not all soldiers work as hard as the soldiers I see. The officer's schedules I witness are 10-12 hours a day. Yes, in my opinion they have a pretty intense work schedule.
Civilians in positions on base. Thats another story. Many of them have no concept of work ethic. Just from my limited observation on some bases where the non- green suiters seem to place their coffee break as just as high in value as their work tasks.
I guess a lot of you have seen or experienced soldier's schedules that are pretty paltry. I have a hard time imagining that their schedule and work demands have been so low-pressure thru their entire career.
Even when I was active duty, it was light duty.
Many officers are commanding a group of people and have politicking and reading to do.
Depending on the job, I can spend 10 hours a day working and weekends during crunch time.
But enlisted active duty, I just don't see it, and I've worked on bases throughout the world.
um, not from what I've seen. But I guess it depends on different factors.
Well, what have you seen?
I mean really...unless you're deployed, the average soldier spends their day doing absolutely NOTHING of any real consequence. Commanders, First Sergeants, and Training NCO's do their damnest to fill up a soldiers day with enough to stay busy. And even when they find something of value to do, the troops quickly get bored. Ask any solder about change 1, change 2, change 3....
Even field exercises are borefests. Weekly Motor Stables are a joke...troops just stand around amusing themselves instead of pulling PMCS's. Weekly Sergeant's Time training usually consists of squads hiding somewhere on post out of the view of the command for 5 hours. They get so many training holidays that they rarely take any leave....and find themselves in Use-or-lose situations.
So really, i don't know what people are talking about when they talk about hard working military people. Sure, they take risks in defending us all, and they get props for that. But as for the actual WORK, forgetaboutit! Only a tiny amount of troops actually do that.
OP: Where do you come up with a 60% figure? That seems extreme and unrealistic. Even a 10% cut in military spending would be monumental.
Here are the cited figures for 2010, shamelessly lifte from Wikipedia:
For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion.[1][2]
When the budget was signed into law on October 28, 2009, the final size of the Department of Defense's budget was $680 billion, $16 billion more than President Obama had requested.[3] An additional $37 billion supplemental bill to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was expected to pass in the spring of 2010, but has been delayed by the House of Representatives after passing the Senate.[4][5] Defense-related expenditures outside of the Department of Defense constitute between $319 billion and $654 billion in additional spending, bringing the total for defense spending to between $1.01 and $1.35 trillion in fiscal year 2010.
I guess not all soldiers work as hard as the soldiers I see. The officer's schedules I witness are 10-12 hours a day. Yes, in my opinion they have a pretty intense work schedule.
Civilians in positions on base. Thats another story. Many of them have no concept of work ethic. Just from my limited observation on some bases where the non- green suiters seem to place their coffee break as just as high in value as their work tasks.
I guess a lot of you have seen or experienced soldier's schedules that are pretty paltry. I have a hard time imagining that their schedule and work demands have been so low-pressure thru their entire career.
Officers are available 10 to 12 hours a day...yes. But doing what? Hard work? Ummm...not really. Officers put in long hours because most don't dare leave work until the commander leaves work. It's all paper pushing for the most part for them. The NCO's do the labor....the commissioned officers get the credit.
That's not to say that all commissioned officers are lazy. On the contrary. But still, their days are filled with mostly mundane and routine tasks. Running a G1 or G4 shop aint that hard if your NCO's know their stuff.
Is it time we rethink our national priorities? Would you favor a 60% cut?
Not in today's world especially with Barry Soetoro (a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama) who constantly seems to have
a problem making decisions in a timely manor with anything
related to our national security
National Priorities must always be first to ensure the American
way of life, far to many have given their life for us and this
I consider to be a slap in the face of our Military People.
A more accountable look into the people taking advantage
of entitlement programs would be the place to start.
OP: Where do you come up with a 60% figure? That seems extreme and unrealistic. Even a 10% cut in military spending would be monumental.
Here are the cited figures for 2010, shamelessly lifte from Wikipedia:
For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion.[1][2] When the budget was signed into law on October 28, 2009, the final size of the Department of Defense's budget was $680 billion, $16 billion more than President Obama had requested.[3] An additional $37 billion supplemental bill to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was expected to pass in the spring of 2010, but has been delayed by the House of Representatives after passing the Senate.[4][5] Defense-related expenditures outside of the Department of Defense constitute between $319 billion and $654 billion in additional spending, bringing the total for defense spending to between $1.01 and $1.35 trillion in fiscal year 2010.
10% would be monumental only because ANY cuts in defense is met with strong opposition.
But if we can't secure this country on 40% of a trillion dollars, then let's just fold up the tent and call it a night. We'd still be outspending everyone else by leaps and bounds. Spending a trillion dollars on military expenditures is shameful by any measure. We ought to be embarrassed as hell about it. That's money that could be spent far better elsewhere in our budget.
If you really want to stop the war mongering, take away the funding.
If you really want to return the U.S. back to solvency, slash the defense budget and pay down the debt.
Does an out of control defense department really make you feel any safer, or secure?
Who is our enemy?... Are they worth a Trillion dollars per year spending?
Are we sure that it is not the enemy within?
Last edited by oldtimer2; 03-20-2011 at 11:26 AM..
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