Army continues plan to cut 40k troops
Here’s your “peace dividend” – the Army is continuing it’s plans to cut 40,000 more troops bringing the current manpower strength to 450,000, you know while Russia is pushing West, while we’re fully engaged with ISIS and the Taliban. While troops are deployed to Africa and the Philippines. From a link sent to us from reader “Ohio” to Reuters;
The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army from its current size of about 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest number since before the United States entered World War Two.
[…]
Defense officials confirmed on Tuesday the Army was moving ahead with the plan to reduce uniformed and civilian personnel and was expected to announce details on Thursday about which units would be affected by the cuts.
The personnel cuts come as the Pentagon is attempting to absorb nearly $1 trillion in reductions to planned defense spending over a decade.
“Smallest number since World War II”. You know what else would save money? If we gave the troops two-by-fours instead of rifles with which to drill. If we put cardboard signs on Humvees with “Tank” written on it in big block letters – that would save fuel. I mean if we’re going back to pre-world-war conditions, let’s go all the way back. Kaserine Pass was a great teaching point for the troops. So was Task Force Smith.
The “peace dividend” always has a price – and that price is always paid for in blood.
Category: Politics
Well, I knew the Clintoons hated the military, but this is worse.
So it’s 1978 all over again?
Or the 90’s.
(ps, sorry, hit ‘report comment’ instead of ‘reply’ the 1st time)
So what? Dear Leader says “… “underlying conditions” of economic hardship and sectarian strife are addressed in the region…”. We don’t need an Army to do that. Beef up the Labor Dept to give those barbarians jobs and all will be well. /sarc
And how much money would be saved if we were to eliminate the “something for nothing” welfare state?
OH NO YOU DIDN’T JUST GO THERE!
just kidding. My thoughts exactly.
Let’s go on with scrapping and and all handouts to illegal aliens scrap the 0bamaphone program, and get tough on illegal immigration. Wait, am I suddenly being WAAAYYCIST?
Sadly, those program would only net peanuts with respect to Federal outlays.
To make any real headway, we’d need to look at “mandatory” entitlement programs. The “biggies” there are Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid/other Federal medical assistance (including the abomination referred to as ObamaCare), SNAP, and a few others – including VA entitlements. Those programs are the ones that are bankrupting the US.
I’m not holding my breath while waiting to see any meaningful cuts in any of the above.
It is sad when a nation is turned into a puppet show.
Are their going to be any General grade officer cuts? Are retired General grade officers going to still receive raises in their meager (extra sacr) retirement checks?
Will Combat Arms be cut the bone again?
And of course “You guys can do more with less for the team”.
Read an interesting article in the fishwrap of record, the New York Times, talking about the Iraqi Army and its preparations to retake ground lost to ISIS. All the NYT’s needed to do was include a couple of operational overlays and the date and time that the IA planned to cross the LOD and ISIS would have all they need to repel any attack (well that and the fact that the Iraqi Army’s will to fight is about as strong de-caffeinated coffee). They also talked about whether or not the US military would be going into battle with the Iraqi’s to coordinate air and supporting arms. Good scoop for the enemy.
So as usual with this administration, we have sent our troops into a cesspool, given them ambiguous ROE, given them a shit mission (training Iraqi’s) and then our own damn media gives about as clear a picture of upcoming operations as an intel briefing. Oh and by the way, we are going to cut the Army down to historic lows.
Getting really tired of the pretending here. This administration has no will to fight. They have no competence in ANYTHING having to do with the military. Our senior Generals are all yes men (those that are not are fired) and we are placing our troops in harms way under dubious circumstances.
I pray daily for our men and women who are serving under these cowards and low lifes. And to put sweet icing on the cake, when our Joes and Jarheads and Squids and Zoomies get home, they are given inadequate/non-existant treatment by their “grateful nation”. It is a disgrace.
Our military is past the breaking point. The fucking good idea fairies who have perpetrated this fraud (from both political parties) need to be held to account. The social experiment that our military has become is a FAILURE! It is going to take YEARS to recover if we even can. And meanwhile, our enemies can smell our weakness and our feckless president does nothing but talk about “ideas” winning on the battlefield. Here is an idea. RESIGN!!!
But, they will still continue efforts to recruit illegal aliens and put women into combat positions…
Don’t forget, accommodating transgenders. How can you leave out the important schtuff, Arby?
Every enemy, past, present and potential is watching these draw down numbers closer than the American public or this Administration. We are spread thinner than a knife scoop of peanut butter on 5 sandwiches as it is. History has shown us over and over, the “do more with less” mentality never works. The entrance into WWII, Korea and even Vietnam for example. Now, here we are again. Those wars though brought numbers through the draft. Try getting the draft past the liberal left today and see how that goes over.
‘The “peace dividend” always has a price – and that price is always paid for in blood.’
Blood, yes — but never, NEVER, the blood of the bastards who make these decisions. Until it’s THEIR blood that gets spilled, they will keep playing politics with the safety of our nation and our soldier’s lives. They can all go straight to blistering hell, as far as I’m concerned.
And the Army goes rolling along….
They should start by cutting every General and Field Grade Officer that cannot bench press 225 pounds.
FY 18 numbers for the active component Army were discussed at a meeting I recently attended at the 5 sided puzzle palace. If you think that they are stopping at 450K, you’re living in a dream world. I’ve been sitting in those meetings since 2012, and the Army has gone to every manning POM B low number that the GOs said would never happen.
And the Eggheads at OSD(CAPE) have been pushing for an Active Army in the very low 400’s, with a COMBINED USAR/ARNG in the low-mid 400’s for several years. No ‘A’ team and no bench. Because, you know, there is no GWOT. Next war will be ‘clear the dug-out’; no rotations, everyone deploys and stays until “it’s over over there”
I disagree, AZ2Va. Next war will see the draft reinstated.
Unless the aliens (the green ones with lasers, not the brown ones with lawn mowers) invade en masse we’ll never see a draft again.
That’s what ‘they’ said before the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
China rising, “pivoting” to Asia and the Pacific, ISIS spreading…..but hey, let’s cut 40K from the Army, we can just shift the burden the the Guard and Reserves. People never learn, you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you want.
They can’t shift the burden to the RC because they are cutting RC training. The 60-90 day ARNG BCT mobilization is a thing of the past. In a few years the ARNG will be back to the 120+ day model, where new equipment and equipment upgrades, along with the additional required training, will all be done post-mob.
The Guard is flat out of money. Guardsmen have to scratch and claw in order to get any sort of training, and everything is stunted due to lack of funds. Lack of funding combined with a weird garrison-equivalent mentality from the leadership, the Guard’s morale is the worst I’ve seen. The Guard is not properly resourced to handle the burden.
That’s what I was hearing from those still in – even basic, essential stuff like MOSQ and NCOES was being affected.
The reserves will be back to doing that soon enough as well.
Why? Because “mobilization orders money” comes from someone else’s pot o’ money. You can get all your training in a year done on someone else’s dime? Super. Do it that way so we don’t have to pay for it.
Although right now, reserve units are going thru Ft Hood with about a 3-4 week stay because they expect you to show up ready to deploy minus a few things.
It would also help if DOD realized that reserve forces have about 1/15th the time to do the same amount of “mandatory training requirements” as the active component. For a few years now the reserve has gotten the same “get this done before next month!” rubbish as the active side with little wiggle room. For the AC side, that’s 30 days to mingle with. For the RC side, that’s about 18-24 hours to fit it into.
But of course, the calls are always, “The military costs too much money! We need to cut the military budget!” Rather than, “We need to cut this 45% increase in welfare recipients! They are costing too much money!”
The money for such mobilizations still has to come out of DoD’s funds, Eric – specifically, almost always out of contingency supplemental appropriations. And when those contingency appropriations get cut/go away, well, . . . .
And places like the “High Royalty Command” (HRC) and the Pentagon won’t be the places that get cuts.
They’ll cut at Division and Below. Maybe Corps will lose some staff, but these cuts are intended for the peasants, not for the upper class. Heaven forbid a flag officer lose is 80-person staff, or a DA Civilian have to retire early.
Of course you know, they can’t “pink slip” DA Civilians either. They’ll just count retirements and transfers as “cuts” of civilians. Must be nice to have all those rules and unions protecting your job.
When you have a guard dog, and you deliberately pull his teeth, clip his vocal cords, and lock him in a kennel…what do you have? And why?
If you ad neuter to that list it sounds like a Bernasty.
Dunno about that last part (“they can’t ‘pink slip’ DA civilians”), Eric. Seems like the the Army has announced intent to do exactly that – to the tune of 17,000 – while it’s cutting uniformed end strength by 40,000.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/army-plans-to-cut-40k-troops-lay-off-17k-civilian-employees-over-next-two-years/
I got a number of 18,000 sand crabs on the noon news today. I guess the real number depends on the source, but the point is that the sand crabs will be cut along with the troops.
It may end up being a lot worse than that, Ex-PH2.
People in uniform get paid out of a fenced category of funds; that money can’t really be used for anything else without some SERIOUS machinations. However, DoD civilian employees get paid out of operations/maintenance (O&M) funding. That’s the same category of money that also buys repair parts, supplies, fuel, vehicle repair services, utilities, and funds most support service contracts.
If the budget gets squeezed, O&M funding often takes a bigger hit than most. That means agencies could be faced with choosing between paying the bills for day-to-day operating costs and their people.
I’m with you on that Hondo, but as I see it, they’ll do a lot of “reorganizing” and “optimizing” and “restructuring” to make those 17K personnel go away.
“They” also always have positions that are “ghosts” (authorized/not required) to play with. So, when they say “We’re cutting 17000 personnel!” that means they are really cutting those positions, not necessarily personnel. And if they do cut positions with personnel in them, they give that person an equivalent level, or higher position somewhere else. (this guy over here is retiring and he’s a GS-10, so you’ll get a promotion from 9 and then we can say that’s ONE more position and civilian we’ve cut!)
I think it would be good if they did though. Start cutting the excessive amount of DA Civilian positions we’ve gained after all these years, especially at echelons above reality. (Since they are also cutting green-suiters) But, like I said, I’ll believe it when I see it Hondo.
Not the way it works for civilian employees, Eric. They’re funded differently than folks in uniform. The name of the game here is saving $$$. Because that’s what’s about to be in short supply across the board – and particularly O&M money. Unlike uniformed military, the vast majority of DoD civilians get paid with O&M funds. That’s the same kind of money that pays for supplies, fuel, repairs, utilities, support service contracts, and other stuff you need to keep the “lights on and doors open”. It’s also an annual appropriation, so there’s no good way to “carry any forward” for the next year. An unfilled position doesn’t get paid. Cutting unpaid positions thus doesn’t save squat. So one way or another, you’ll see people cut. If someone retires and isn’t replaced, that means payroll goes down. Their salary (and bennies, which are about 33% or so of salary) comes off the books. Even if the retiring employee’s position is essential and gets filled, the replacement is often much less senior – and thus starts at a lower salary than their predecessor. The result is a net payroll savings. And often hiring freezes make that difficult if not impossible for a while. Even if/when an agency can fill the position by an internal promotion, that leaves another vacancy elsewhere. If they can’t fill vacancies from an outside source due to a hiring freeze, that means a real savings – maybe a bit smaller savings than leaving the slot vacant, but a significant one nonetheless. And as I noted above, someone who’s promoted typically starts near the lower end of the scale for their new grade – so there’s that savings too. Finally, DoD has been paying a whole sh!tload of civilians with contingency O&M funds (or funding other things with contingency O&M in order to free “normal” budget O&M) for a long time now. They’ve also been playing the “cut vacant billets” game for a while. They’re just about out of room to maneuver in both areas, particularly as contingency funds dry up. Bottom line: I’m guessing you’ll see incentives for… Read more »
Okay, I was with you until you said:
“No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”
Is that an east coast thing? Because I keep hearing those east coast sayings and have to have them explained to me every time.
But yes, I know who buck rogers is. lol
Nope. It’s from the movie “The Right Stuff.”
In the movie, it was a statement to the test pilots being recruited for the US space program. It was made to emphasize to them that without funding, no new planes could be developed and tested. More generally it means that without sufficient money little can be done. It’s the way the real world works.
‘no bucks, no Buck Rogers’ is a quote from ‘The Right Stuff’ movie, Eric.
Hmmm – Hondo, I always had the impression that the sand crabs took up positions that could have been held by military at a lower cost. Pay levels are different.
When benefits are considered, that’s in general true. The difference is not that large, but it’s there.
However, IMO the real reason for the push to “civilianize” positions that were formerly military is political. Doing so allows the reduction of uniformed end-strength, which a clueless segment of the US population thinks is a “good thing”.
The result is that the deployed military now could not perform its wartime mission without both DoD civilians and contractors being deployed to a war zone. I believe at the height of operations in SWA the total was approx 100k split between contractors and civvies deployed in theater.
In 05-06 Hondo there were over 100K troops and 100K civilians/contractors/etc.
So yes, that is true. Though that’s also in part due to Rumsfelds ideal that “if a civilian ‘could’ do the job, then make it a civ job so green suiters can do theirs.” He also wanted to run DOD like a business, but a business DOD is not.
I can see the appeal in that, but it got out of control and was excessive.
If I was on AD right now I’d be polishing up my resume, taking all the college courses I could and making damn sure I could pass both PT and tape.
If the 1990’s are any indicator the “attrition” in the Army will be done mostly with a scale and a tape measure using AR-600-9.
I’d be making damn sure I made weight, tape be damned. Being over screening weight and having to be taped makes one rather visible.
Yeah, because height/weight charts and BMI is such a good indicator of overall health, and haven’t been discredited by the scientific community for over three decades. Pfffffft. ***makes jerking-off motion with hand***
The “AMA” even considers professional body builders as “morbidly obese” because they weigh too much for their height.
I could lose 10-15 pounds if I worked at it, but I’m not fat and I don’t feel sluggish or worn out.
Honestly NFL/NBA/MLB doctors and athletic trainers should be the ones helping repair military personnel and/or setting our standards of what “in shape” is, as opposed to Doctor important-pants who deals mostly with women who play tennis too much, when they aren’t on rodeo drive shopping, so they can keep thin for their millionaire husbands.
It isn’t as bad as it used to be in the 90s Hondo, but it still can be a task.
Since I’ve been in the Army I’ve added so much muscle that I couldn’t make my weight if I starved myself for a month straight. In high school I was a tall skinny bean pole who couldn’t bench press my own weight. I was in shape, but fairly weak comparatively.
The Army doesn’t care to change the archaic “American Medical Association” ht/wt table that was created for the “average human being” (probably not updated since the 50s?) so we’re stuck dealing with it. I always pass tape, but many of us get “perceived” as fat asses for not being 5’8″ and 140lbs.
I understand, Eric. I’m not skinny either; I was always close. But one way or another, I always managed to get under the screening weight for my height – even if by only 1 or 2 lbs.
I’d recommend that. Barring another shooting war, indicators for the next few years are starting to remind me a helluva lot of the Clintoon era, military-wise.
I was active duty in 1975 and 1976 at Fort Richardson adjacent to Anchorage Alaska. After May 1975, every possible bit of chickshit was applied – weight, weapon qual, uniforms – whatever. The CSQ (chickenshit quotient) ruled. I left in March 1976, immediately hired on as a DAC doing exactly the same job so I got to observe the CSQ for some more months when I left the state. I hear that it downright ugly during the rest of the 70s. Then 1979 happened, Carter wanted to rescue the hostages and couldn’t get the pieces organized.
I am certifiably old and stupid but I have an opinion. In hopes of motivating their base, the Dems will cut the military some more next year. At some point, something bad will happen and the military will be sucking hind tit trying to keep the wolves away from the door. If the thing is big enough, Uncle will have to restart the draft. With the speed of warfare these days, will we get 90 days to produce a Basic Training class? If the thing is big enough, will we be able to deploy the Guard or will they be tied up with home issues? If we have no troops to send, do we have to pull out the big guns? I’m just a dickweed from the sticks of Michigan but I left my county a couple of times, I read a history book once, and my imagination is still working.
You’re correct about the late 1970s, Richard. From what I saw and remember, they sucked The Grand Wazoo.
This really does have that deja vu all over again from the Carter administration. I have the same feeling Richard has.
If shrillary gets elected, I see a lot more hostage taking and demands for ransom because we all have targets on our backs, right? So the money that normally goes to the DoD budget for people and stuff goes off to other programs, and open season on Murricans begins.
Sorry to be so dismal this early, but someone needs to catch her making a serious blunder, or we are screwed.
Isn’t it just “fascinatingly coincidental” that every time a democrat is elected, the military gets cut to shreds?
Carter, Clinton, Obama….
If a republican doesn’t get elected next go around we are all fucked.
Yeah, I remember the 90s all too well. I was a lowly E-5 then and didn’t need to worry about getting cut out. However, I saw the few “lucky” ones who were offered early an early out paycheck of 6 figures to walk away with nothing else. Then others who weren’t so lucky and didn’t get anything to go away.
I also met quite a few of those types in 2005 in Iraq because they had a chance to come back years later to continue to serve.
Plus, we were just as busy then as we are now with missions around the world and our budget got cut down to pennies too.
This is traditional.
Cut the military to the nub so’s we can be sure we’re not at all ready for a war that’s coming.
The reckless speed and aggressiveness of the reduction of our combat capability means that our fedzilla is desperate to meet traditional unpreparedness levels with a quickness. That means a large war is nearly upon us.