only a small percentage of these non-combat jobs can be safely given over to non-military personnel and that the rest are not civilian-jobs-in-the-making, but tasks military personnel carry out for good reason--and, as such, require a military chain of command.That's a crock. Yeah, we do need more combat strength. But it is an absolute fact that we have a LOT of positions filled by military personnel right here in the US that are never going to be forward deployed. Ever. And almost all of them could be filled by civilian contractors with security clearances. Anyone who has actually been in the military can tell you that.
Anyone who doesn't think so, think: pick, pack, ship, clean, guard, repair, maintain, and paper processing.
You cannot close bases and give civilians all the base jobs for the simple fact that they need to rotate to shore duty and away fromt he action for 2-3-4 years or so. Otherwise, this will no longer be a volunteer military. Military families need their fathers (or mothers, in a few cases--and I prefer this weren't so) to rotate home. Kids cannot cope with it, nor should wives be expected to cope with it non-stop.
Its all fine and good to talk about how to "fix it" when you haven't lived it.