missing gear

[whitebeard21]

Despite efforts to produce more vests with the armored plates, the Pentagon says there still aren't enough, especially among guardsmen and reservists. All troops rotating out of Iraq are now being required to leave their vests behind so incoming troops can use them.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/U...nt_040207.html

Finally something in the us press about the way our troops are being mistreated.

No vests available for the pentagon to buy but the parents can get them. Give me a break.

We can spend $28.00 each for a million non existant meals served up by halliburton but no vests for the troops. A lot of the vests they do have are ouy of date. They do have a shelf life of 5 years.
This is what they need.

http://www.bulletproofme.com/Body_Ar...otection.shtml

[Optimus Prime]

In the British Army, a lot of the troops take out the ceramic plates because "they weigh you down, mate". Scary, eh? .

[Epidemic]

The vest thing is interesting.

First off leaving vest behind after rotation ummm that seems to make sense.

Secondly is any soldier being compelled to go into the field with out a vest?

How many soldier are on patrol or out in public at any given time?

Sharing should be employed before anyone goes out unprotected.

Would sharing be at all bad??? In other words if every soldier out in harms way is protected, does it matter how this is accomplished?



The 28 dollars a meal thing pisses me off. Soldiers should be cooking their SOS themselves. When did we start contracting such services ? we could provide for virtually free.

[whitebeard21]

"Sharing should be employed before anyone goes out unprotected.

Would sharing be at all bad??? In other words if every soldier out in harms way is protected, does it matter how this is accomplished? " Epidemic



"The 28 dollars a meal thing pisses me off. Soldiers should be cooking their SOS themselves. When did we start contracting such services ? we could provide for virtually free." Epidemic


Some units have only 10% protected is what has been reported back to family and friends here.

You could feed a company of troops for a month for what they charge for one meal for the same company.

Dillinger should have had it so good.

I have lost the link but I will keep looking for a town in Mich. or Minn. that wanted to send floor armour for the hummers and were refused by the dod. This was for their Guard unit that had been deployed to Iraq.

[Epidemic]

Some units having 10% armor may not be that bad as well.

What are thoses units function are they working on vehicle manintenance or out on patrol, are the located were the people love us or in the triangle?

I don't know if it is bad that they do not have armor on those 10% units. I can't know from where I sit


does anyone know when we began outsourcing military food and why.

Not that silly reason that more troops would be available to fight.

84 dollars a day in food pays for a couple of cooks

[whitebeard21]

Military police units as well as motor pool (Drivers armed with rifles instead of sidearms)

[Warthog]

The 28 dollars a meal thing pisses me off. Soldiers should be cooking their SOS themselves. When did we start contracting such services ? we could provide for virtually free.

That requires manpower....and don't think "oh we could just hand out MRE's then"....rrrrrrrright...MRE's are actually expensive. It's cheaper to buy a shiznit load of instant mash potatoes, pork patties, etc.

Not justifying the $28/meal at all - that's just messed up...but everything isn't as cheap/easy as everyone thinks it is.

Warthog

[Epidemic]

Warthog I am not saying it is easy. But for the 3 billion that will be spent on 28 dollar meals you can buy a hell of alot of mess chefs and a boat load of potato peelers.

Taking half that and paying mess chefs 40,000 bucks annual salary buys you 37,000 mess chefs. Being that 10 mess personel can serve approximately 300 to 400 personel 3 meals a day you would only need 4,500 mess personel to feed 135,000 troops.

or rather about 180 million dollars assuming loaded pay @ average 40,000 dollars a year.

Food materials should not exceed 10 bucks a day per soldier so add 492 million. so we are paying 3 billion dollars for about a round figure of 600 million to 700 million bucks worth of service.

Round that even up to a billion and you still could afford 2 billion dollars worth of troops and equipment, armor, ammunition and so on.

I would love to see the justification figures that say it is more efficient to keep the troop numbers efficiently deployed doing army stuff versus increased troop strength 3.3% an having cooks.

at 28k per year loaded cost for pfc, I cant help but think that 78,000 troops would not help.

[Gomer]

When did we start contracting such services ?

does anyone know when we began outsourcing military food and why.

About the same time we started issuing no-bid contracts to Bush and Cheney's cronies to clean up the mess in Iraq.

Do I know this for a fact? Not at all... but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just another "coincidence."

[RADAR1797]

Gomer,

It started in the 90s under guess who? There is a Congressional mandated cap on the number of uniformed service members the military may maintain. In order to get more warfighters, they contract out services. Also, it provides for local jobs for the countries where we have our bases, hence it is an incentive for a country to host our forces.

-RADAR