Rumor Doctor on Air Force spending priorities
We’ve all heard the rumor that the reason Air Force bases are so loaded with niceties that the rest of the military doesn’t have is because they build the amenities first and then go back to Congress to complain there wasn’t enough to build an airstrip. Well, the Stars & Stripes Rumor Doctor, Jeff Schogol, does the leg work to uncover the truth;
The Air Force says the myth about runways is pure hogwash.
“The Air Force uses a deliberate process determine which projects deserve limited military construction funds,” Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Richelle Dowdell said in an email. “There is a scoring matrix that is used to determine the priorities of those projects, and the impact to the mission plays a big part in that scoring.”
I guess that just means that the Army sucks at getting money for building nice things. It probably doesn’t help the Army that they build in shitholes like Liberty County, GA and the Air Force builds at Fort Walton Beach, FL.
The last line of The Rumor Doctor’s piece puts the Air Force’s statement in some doubt, though.
Category: Military issues
The mission of an Air Force Base is to provide relaxation for the pilots.!;-})
Anyone who’s been on a large Army base recently can’t feel too bad about things. With new and renovated privatized housing, new MWR and AAFES facilities and more, I’ve seen a big change since Fort Campbell circa 2001. I didn’t wander to Andrews very often, but Bolling AFB was not as nice as Fort Myer or especially Belvoir. The same goes for Keesler down this way; it is much nicer than Fort Polk, but cannot compare to Campbell and other larger Army bases.
I live near Whiteman AFB in Missouri, and I have watched them waste a shitpot full of money revamping the housing EVERY year. Last year, the zoomies put fracking WHITE PICKET FENCES around the yard of every house in base housing. What the hell is that? I don’t know who controls their purse strings but I would suspect it is a gerbil on benzedrine.
The gap equals out in the world of recruiting. The Air Force spends it’s money on folks after they join. I spent four years as a recruiter, and my Army counterparts would never miss a chance to wax poetic about how much more money they could give a recruit up front just for signing on the dotted line. People thought I was joking when I told them there was no “automatic” enlistment bonus just for joining the Air Force. I would show up at events (if they would give me booth space for free, because I didn’t have an advertising budget compared to my Army cohorts) and while I passed out pencils the Army recruiters were handing out T-shirts, backpacks, and even video games the army had paid to develop to entice recruits. So don’t get mad that the Air Force spends money on quality of life items for folks who are already serving, instead of spending it on rock climbing walls and video games to entertain overweight schoolboys who will never be eligible to serve in a million years.