I can honestly say that this move makes sense. The US Army did it beginning with the All Volunteer Army. The Post Engineers took care of the building maintenance (not daily cleaning), mowing parade grounds, maintenance of firing ranges (small arms and AFV). When in Germany we took care of the grass in front of the barracks & orderly room, and the ‘ever popular’ morning ‘police call.’ At Ft. Knox, in the mid-70’s, each battalion had a month’s “training holiday” when it was taken off training and did all of the mowing, road garbage pickup, guarding the ammo dumps, until those responsibilities were changed sometime after I departed there in 1975
At the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood when my battalion would get mess hall run it was always me because I had a stretch deuce-and-a-half, even though I was an intelligence analyst. That’s a ton of food to go load and then unload. And of course the cook wouldn’t help.