Posted on 12/01/2012 6:18:59 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
The Pentagon is in the process of eliminating two heavy armored brigades based in Germany. That will leave two U.S. Army combat brigades permanently stationed in Europe, one in Germany and one in Italy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Good! Europe can take care of itself.
I would like to see this done on every military installation and would like to see the VA hospitals go the same way. Our military can handle any job in both situations. I see no need for civilians on a military installation.
Under Clinton, the military started hiring civilians to do the jobs that military used to do. My hubby says Bush tried to do away with this practice, but was unable to do it. Once you hire the civilians they become unionized and you are screwed.
Good!
The Krauts can route out the moslems simply by using their existing laws, and exposing them as the “anti-Semitic” murderers that they actually are.
The goverment should welcome any Jews that have combat or LEO experience, and want to help Germany get “back to normal”
yep, and now obummer is determined to replace the military with his own civilian army of “brown shirts.”
Down, down, down we go thru the rabbit hole to the magical universe of socialism...
All our forces should be removed from Europe and Japan.
Having served under Reagan, I must contradict you. Civilians have been working in and for the military long before Clinton began staining the carpets in the Oval Office.
You've got that right. It's almost laughable that we think we need troops in Europe or Japan today, let alone heavy armored brigades. It's wasteful and expensive.
And no, I don't buy the "forward deployment" argument. The US has the ability to get people where they're really needed in a reasonable amount of time.
We don't need forces everywhere, all the time. Just like a fire department doesn't need a crew on every street corner. They just need the ability to get to a corner in a reasonable amount of time.
This is good. The Obama administration seems to have done something right.
“All our forces should be removed from Europe and Japan.”
I agree. I wish FR had a LIKE button.
There were contractors on Wake Island during that battle.
If they close the Germany bases will our wounded warriors have to travel home for surgery?
The big shift to hiring civilians to replace GIs at many traditional Army jobs began in the late Vietnam era and immediate post-Vietnam years. The idea was to get soldiers out of jobs that could be done by civilians — KPs in the mess hall, runing the NCO and Officer Clubs, doing post engineers jobs to maintain the physical structures on an military base — instead of having GIs do that and thus have “few GIs” doing non-military jobs. I must admit, not losing a soldier to being on KP several days a month, was beneficial to training. I had my entire section present everyday instead of one of them off “peeling potatoes and washing dishes” in the mess hall.
The combat brigade at Baumholder has folded its flag and will probably be re-established at Ft. Bliss as part of the 1st Armored Division, if it survives the comming Army budget cuts. The Army is keeping a brigade at Grafenwoehr, Germany, which was the 7th Army’s major training base with a full set of firing ranges. There will continue to be the major Army hospital Pirmasens and the supply warehouses there. USAREUR and a much shrunken V Corps HQ is being relocated from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden.
The current plan is to continue the Landstuhl facility, and they are even replacing it with another structure. So I don’t see that going away. There’s still going to be some kind of presence there for the next twenty years.
cut all the civilians you want, but don’t touch the guys and gals in uniform.
I will modify that by saying you can cut some of the general officers. Some of them obviously have too much time on their hands.
NATO’s mission ended in 1990. Like all good bureaucracies, it continued to grow, and rather made itself protector of 35+ EU nations. Why the hell NATO needed to confront the Russians over Georgia or help Islamists take over Kosovo is beyond me.
NATO should be dismantled immediately.
>>cut all the civilians you want, but don’t touch the guys and gals in uniform.
This is why any kind of meaningful budget reduction is impossible. Everyone has something that can’t be cut. If you aren’t willing to demand cuts in your favorite government expense, then why do you think you have the right to bully others into accepting cuts in theirs? (BTW: the military is my “don’t cut” expense too, but we have to face reality that our nation is broke.)
I do believe there is much to be cut in the Pentagon without affecting military preparedness. I had a young friend, an officer, assigned to the Pentagon several years ago and he couldn’t get out fast enough. According to him the DOD is bulging with unnecessary personnel and young civilians, probably recent grads from Ivy Leagues schools inundate the place. None have experience to authenticate their decisions. Remember the DOD “whiz” from Vietnam days?
correction - “whiz kids”
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