Without the Army Civilians to provide long-term institutional memory, I don't think the Army would function well at all.
I used to jokingly try to tell some of them that they should be able to submit an OER support form that stated, “When I got here things were running like a well oiled machine so I left everything just as the ARs require...” Somehow most of them never seemed to get it. It never dawned on a few that almost all of their “improvements” were specifically contradicted by the Regs.