By I agree with Secretary Gates on this because sometimes I find myself amazed there is a General officer in charge of certain functions plus he is also targeting the bloated civilian ranks as well:
Of all the spending cuts and budget battles the Pentagon is confronting, none is causing more angst than Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates‘s vow to start getting rid of generals and admirals.
By almost any measure, the military is more top-heavy an institution than it has been for decades. Today, there are 40 four-star generals and admirals — one more than in 1971, during the Vietnam War, even though the number of active-duty troops has shrunk by almost half.
The number of active-duty generals and admirals of all rank, meanwhile, has increased by about 13 percent since 1996.
It is, as Gates puts it, “brass creep.”
But the defense secretary’s pledge Monday to cut about 5 percent of the brass is nothing short of seismic for many at the Pentagon. The cuts would be the largest in the upper ranks since a similar squeeze at the end of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize. [Washington Post]
Just like bringing change to any entrenched bureaucracy, Gates is going to have a fight on his hands.
11:16 am on August 20th, 2010 1
Not so sure. The military has become much more technologically sophisticated over the last 50 years since Vietnam. Many of the jobs for the high ranking have much to do with this as far as both procuring and operating properly. To me its just smoke and mirrors to reduce spending.
12:49 pm on August 20th, 2010 2
I bet that the 1-stars get hit the hardest.
Commanding General, Army Safety Center… see you, wouldn't want to be you.
BG in charge of Army suicide prevention… see you, wouldn't want to be you.
All of you BG's in command of nothing but get primo housing on Fort Shafter and do nothing but go on TDY around the Pacific to visit troops who you don't have anything to do with, see you, wouldn't want to be you.
Oh, and uh… LTG Mixon, you don't want to deal with the gays anyway, so see you, wouldn't want to be you, and we'll downgrade your billet to a two star reserve-component slot, and downgrade the 2-star US Army Alaska slot to a BG.
How many Army GOs are in Korea? Eleven, including officers in joint billets and two full-time reserve-component MGs.
1:53 pm on August 20th, 2010 3
Retired General LaPorte is not concerned. His evangelical mojo is STRONG. Praise be Jebus!
3:17 pm on August 20th, 2010 4
MG in charge of chaplains? and called the chief of chaplains. We give MG to some army ground pounder who has sacraficed the better part of 35 years to his country instead of his family and we put him in charge of 3 maneuver brigades, an aviation brigade, arty, medical, support, communications, a pocket full of civilians, he has to erect a board to remind everyone how many days since the last traffic fatality because he's got so many joe's under his command. And we give the same rank to some chaplain who goes to work at 930 takes a 2 hour lunch, goes home at 1600 and sacrafices virtually nothing along the way and he gets the same rank? How degrading
4:07 pm on August 20th, 2010 5
ash yes,the army pope.
#4 I thought he sacrificed goats or something… he should.
"Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you." (Genesis 22:1-18)
"Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among Israelites, both man and beast, for it belongs to me" (Exodus 13:2)
"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
Don't bitch at me, it's your book, your sick ass book. Morals indeed… You might want to read it sometime. You might decide you don't like it. Oh, I know "out of context, blah blah". Words means things and the words in that vile tome are quite clear.
Cheers!
5:25 pm on August 20th, 2010 6
Leon,
I take it we won't see you in church tomorrow?
5:32 pm on August 20th, 2010 7
I think Leon might be a recovering altar boy
5:39 pm on August 20th, 2010 8
#6 Only with a torch
#7 Fortunately no, but I'd love to sue for some of that tax free catholic bootie cheese.
Seriously. Religious people don't mean to be bad, but they are. Nor do I hate them. But, they vote. They vote for other religious people or kill our friends and countrymen. Then thier private beliefs become everyone's problem.
…And the damndest thing is, if they applied critcal thought and REALLY read thier book they would conclude that this is really bad shiat and drop it like a hot rock.
Anyhoo, the subject at hand. Let the tax-free money from the mega0churches fund the chaplain corps, if they must exist. Certainly they shouldn't be wearing officer rank. Isn't their cross-star-half-moon enough?
6:40 pm on August 20th, 2010 9
I'm so glad I stopped working for the U.S. Govt. The pay is good but the fact that it's insanely corrupt the higher you go up and that it produces ABSOLUTELY NOTHING makes it an exercise in futility.
There are some good people but they always get chewed up and spat out.
11:15 pm on August 21st, 2010 10
one thing he could start is making DOD stop wasting money out of their budgets by spending all excess funds for no god damn reason other than they dont want to lose money in the following years fiscal total they would receive. i have worked in units that waste hundreds of thousands of dollars just to spend the money. what do they by?
computers and other periphreal devices that they dont need because they are only in year two of their current life-cycle of that they have on hand now but buying this stuff is easy and costs a lot. so the stuff sits in boxes and warehouses/storage
10:15 am on August 22nd, 2010 11
Jslim yep you gotta love how the financial system works. On one hand you have people screaming to spend wiser, cut back and not waste money. But on the other hand you have a set of budgeting policys designed to have their units spend as much as possible.
Lets say Unit A has a 1 mil dollar a year budget approved, the same as Unit B. Unit A is frugal and wisely spends their resources netting a 200,000 dollar a year savings. At the end of the year Unit A isn't allowed to save that 200,000, instead it goes into the Army one fund which is used to cover over-budget units. Now Unit B was wasteful and spent 1.1 mil that year, which is a 100,000 dollar over budget expense. Their overrun will be paid for by Unit A's excess.
Now next years budget is being put together and guess what, because Unit A was so good in saving money its been decided they don't need a 1 mil dollar budget but instead only get 800,000 for the next year. So not only do they loose out on the 200K from the first year, but then they loose out again on the next years 200K. By saving 200K their lost 400K or more on their own budgets. It is decided that Unit B needs more money because of their cost overrun (their CDR was really good at word-smithing the explanation) and now get a 1.1 mil a year budget. For overspending their budgets get increased.
That is the reason everyone does "end of year spending" to deplete their budgets. They don't want their budgets cut for the next year or two. The system itself rewards over spenders while punishing those who try to save money. It would be impossible to save money or reduce budgets with that kind of policy in place. The conspiracy theorist in me things it was deliberately setup that way to keep base CDR's spending as much as possible to prevent the DoD's budget from being cut and to pump as much money into the local populations as possible.