akwater: I think I need a new dictionary
Agreed, hehe. Hey Akwater, provide a US mil. dictionary for us. :)
Ok it is early but and I havent had my coffee so my spelling may be off....
SF= Special Forces (dick heads who buy Monster Energy Drinks by the pallet load leaving the shitty Orignal Coffee ones for everyone else, they also are not subject to nearly half the rules and regulations that the rest of us are supposed to follow)
Terp= Interpeter (Sometimes Iraqi, sometimes Afgani, they know the lay of the land, the people, and if you need vodka, real beer, or anything they will have the hook up, the american terps make 200k+ a year while the locals make about 60k)
FOBs = Forward Operating Bases sometimes refered to as COBs=Contingency operating bases, COSs which are the small middle of nowhere little outposts where like anywhere from 25 to 100 personal are. Contingency Operating stations are the shitty place to be, you get to shit in a bag, sleep in a tent, no internet, just shitty living there normally.
BDU= Battle Dress Uniform standard uniform for Army personal
Digi = Digital Cammoflagued BDU
CAC= Common Access Card
MWR= Moral Warfare and Recreation (the places where concerts are held, internet, phone rooms, video game systems, library, where we work out)
um.................... Now I gotta get some coffee....
kramhag: Don't get me wrong, I do not resent my country, I love its principles. I would fight for it in a situation of domestic defense; like if the racist neo-Confederates in the south got their wish for another civil war. Not to be used as a political tool in Iraq exploited by private military contractors making billions off of US soldier's and innocents deaths. I think it's wrong to portray any military in the way games like COD4 do with marines, no less one with a track record as spotty as the US.
You also fail to see the fact is without contractors over here how many more Soliders would be here? For every Fighting solider here there is 3-10more SOLIDERS behind that person providing logistical, communication, medical support.
How many Contract personal are here... Well it takes about One thousand Personal cooking day in and day out who are not military to make sure that three thousand soliders have hot meals. There are 800 people here working laundry with a 72 hour turn around for that same three thousand troops. There is 25 people here providing water treatment for that same amount of troops. Another 25 people for waste water treatment.
For every 10 soliders there is 100 contracted personal to ensure they while not on mission have everything from Power, water, internet, phones, smokes, fuel, and anything else you can think of.
Deaths of contractors are unreported (unless they go off the base and get drunk, and get their head chopped off in the process)
I am a civillian, I work for the Department of Defense, if you want to call it a company thats fine, but for us to provide the same services that all those companies provide it would cost 200 to 300 times more money. I am a GS15 and my one position used to be held by 37 soliders, Yes thats Thirty Seven soliders. I have a staff of me. I report directly to the base commander daily.
37 soliders from e1 (private) to e7's (first sarg) each making about 3k a month for an e1, the e7's were earning more obviously. But even if I replaced 37 e1's at 3k a month that would be about 111 thousand dollars a month. Now I wish I could say I earned that, but I don't. Sure I make six figures a year and yet the military could put those same 37 soliders back on the ground and spend what I make in a year in ONE MONTH.
Granted some contractors make 400 Dollars a month ie the people cooking the soliders food, but should we instead have 1000 soliders making at least 3k per month...... 1000 people making 400 (subcontract workers) vs 1000(soliders) people making 3k...
If I need a job done and I need to hire someone to do XYZ, and different companies bid on it, I choose who I want based on price preformance time frames and other data. Say the winning bid is 2mill, the company hires workers who will work for 1 dollar a day, and spends 1mill on labor/supplies. The company made 1 mil profit, and yet their workers may have only made a a couple hundred bucks per person, is that wrong?
Not to be used as a political tool in Iraq exploited by private military contractors making billions off of US soldier's and innocents deaths
I know some military contractors here, and NONE of them make Billions. Their company might make billions but each person working for that company does not make a billion.
Think of it this way, McDonald's posts $1.1 billion in profit on European sales does that mean each person working at McDonalds in Europe makes a billion dollars Or that their COMPANY made a billion?
Blackwater may have made more then a trillion bucks scince Iraq started but each one of their personall doesnt make that much.
There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, which I can not even find estimates on. Yet there is 150,000 Soliders here, So lets get rid of all the contractors reinstate the draft so we can fill those voids.
No solider here has peeled a potato or worked KP (cleaning cooking etc in the dining area).
Lets not forget that the 100,000+ contractors in Iraq could be Johnny down the block or even you.
Like it or not Contract personal are vital, the military DOES NOT have the people to do everything we do. The only way the Military could get those numbers would be to reinstate the draft, which would kill moral, and cause more harm to our soliders who take their job seriously.
There are soliders here who have done three or four tours of combat duty, soliders have been stop lossed, and if you want to not use civilian personal those same soliders would have never left. Iraq Started in 2003, if I have done 4 tours each lasting 15 months in Iraq that would mean out of 72 months I would have been here for 60 of those months.
Sorry this is one issue I am heated about.
Awesome, since I am heated about this too! So, basically you're annoyed that he calls what you do in Iraq for what it is, which is, exploiting the spoils of war? :D Modify it the way you want, but what you and all those thousands of civilians and private companies are doing there is proftiting from good ole nation building, in all its ugly glory. I think the USA, by that meaning Haliburton, big oil companies related to the previous administration namely Mr. Cheney, private "security consultants", nice word for mercenaries, and such, should GTFO of Iraq, and dont let the door get them on their ass on their way out.
