Comments on: Send Civilians, Don’t Nation Build

By: roland

roland — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:08:29 +0000

I agree, but they may already have started the nation (Afghanistan) rebuilding.

By: Alton

Alton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:10:42 +0000

Yeah, Now IF they would just read Title 5 USC para.s 3301 to 3318 (written in 1944), IF the Dept of Labor would truly do what they set out to do (USVETS program), IF the EEOC would not be "just another haven for worthless people who can't find work in other places, then get steamrolled by the Base Commander, IF the Disabled Veterans Affirmative Action Program AKA: DVAAP was not just another program that doesn't do anything (like Hire the VET), IF the Americans with Disability Act 'actually' stopped someone from doing something wrong but instead waited until after, ...etc, etc, etc. Hey, learning experience. I've still got my letter telling me I should 'ask the union' to get my government granted Handicapped Parking Permit (that I already had) and which I use whenever I want to show that Uncle Sam doesn't really care, he just waffles. Oh yeah, I worked for two different Government Contractors and four different arms of the military, was overseas eleven years, foreign languages, KSAs...etc. and I was constructively discharged by one of them ( you don't know pain until you have something like this done to you) for HAVING a disability. You see the Army doesn't want to hire disabled People/ Veterans no matter how smart they are. Now were was I now? Oh yeah, doing the right thing. Then I go to a school to get a college education and the campus policeman tells some IT guys they could park in the handicapped place because taking all those computer discs was soooo strenuous, not thinking that 50 yards for a normal person is 500 yards for the Handicapped. HIS college education is wasted. And America wonders why the Vet.s are mad...

By: Thomas Williams

Thomas Williams — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:14:59 +0000

tmb LOOK AT your comment state department is VOLUNTEERS BULL why are they getting paid and great incentatives and a RED passport

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:13:23 +0000

The Army is the only organization suitable for occupation duty. They have done it in the past in places such as the Philippines and the American West. The Army WWII history series has two good volumes on how these tasks were accomplished by the Army in Germany and Japan. It sounds to me like the Army is trying to fob off their responsibilities to someone else.

I went to Afghanistan as a civilian engineer after serving a year in Iraq as a member of the military. I found the civilian hiring procedures full of favoritism and the civilian leadership self serving. The boundaries between a civilian and soldier are blurred to the point where I was expected to pull perimeter security and capture IED triggermen. I might as well have been a soldier. The idea that civilians should be given control of this war is absurd.

Our notion of building infrastructure in order to win over a populace only works in US domestic politics. LBJ tried that same approach with North Vietnam and it went nowhere. Somewhere in this process the enemy has to be beaten down enough to where the enemy cries uncle and the Army is the only organization capable of doing that.

By: Thomas Williams

Thomas Williams — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:13:17 +0000

Colonel, You hit the mark let the civilians as you and I display our experience on the battle field and off the field leave the fighting to our troops I am a retired Sergeants Major

Obama will not listening while everyone is getting good pay

By: Thomas Williams

Thomas Williams — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:05:16 +0000

yea man I have valuable experience as a retired Sergeants Major but, the Obama adminastration and the so called free government dont want us because we will CONTRIBUTE experience and NO red TAPE and plenty of common sense

By: Thomas Williams

Thomas Williams — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:01:28 +0000

Mr Skinner, I just want to say that you have a negative attitude about your fello americans. I am a retired sergeants major in the logistics field and can help all that i can and I DONT NEED protection fro the government I can survive because for several reasons # 1 I AM A COUNTRY BOY # 2 I HAVE WILL POWER AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST I HAVE COMMON SENSE

By: Tamber

Tamber — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:32:30 +0000

Alton, you have valid points. It's not only the government jobs that hire "the friends", the civilian jobs are handled the same way...Its WHO you know, NOT what you know, and it's been that way for years. I have applied for numerous government jobs (I have many talents)...for example, since June '09, I have applied to no less than 500 jobs!! (not all overseas, but throw enough mud at the wall, and SOMETHING should happen). I have had in the past four weeks alone, six interviews (flying to various states to interview with agencies, hotel, food, car rental) at MY expense, all in the hopes of landing a job...if not overseas (preferred), but will accept anything...The old saying...JUST GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR AND MOVE AROUND FROM THERE. Start networking immediately and get where you really want to work. I have FINALLY landed a government job after apply for many positions, for over TWO YEARS... Anyone that is looking for a government job, I ALWAYS pass on what tricks I have picked up, what contacts I have obtained, any email addresses of people who can help/advise/may know someone..and so on..NETWORKING is the key. I am moving this Thursday back east. I am leaving my home and all things behind. My fiance', an 18 year career Army Officer did not come home from Iraq, so I was left with no option other than to start my life over alone, and it seemed prudent to move somewhere new. So, I tried to do as he would tell me to "stand tall like your soldier" and do what I must. He wrote to me late last summer and said "If I were dying, my last words would be have faith and pursue the unknown end. A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly troubles and courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear. I love you and know that I am coming for you my love." Well, he's not going to come for me, but I am putting his wise words in action. In my current part time job, I am near a huge Navy base, which everyone comes to the store I work at, and ANYONE in the military, I go above and beyond to help them and their families. I give away a lot of things free to them, and I pass on to the families what I have learned. I have "adopted" a platoon in Afghanistan (90 guys) and a platoon in Iraq (190 guys/10 women). Every 4-6 weeks, I ship around 500 lbs of whatever they need. This costs me A LOT of money, but I do it because they not only deserve it, but its the right thing to do. I have inspired many people/organizations to adopt our troops, and I will never stop steamrolling people to support past/present veterans. It's our duty. Alton, I will repeat the wise words of my finance'.....Have faith and pursue the unknown end.

By: Alton

Alton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:17:05 +0000

LTC read my reply to Tamber. You can also explain to me why civilians having NO experience with Disabled Veterans benefits, chose to start a “He doesn’t look disabled to me” and proceeded to try to take away my Handicapped parking priveleges on a US ARMY base. I countered with the ADAS directive but it should never have happened if the would bother to read anything past their “how to treat people like dirt manual”. And then we wonder why they need a recession to get people to join. No wonder we are losing the war, We are too stupid to win it!

By: Alton

Alton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:09:17 +0000

Read my reply to Tamber…

By: Alton

Alton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:08:03 +0000

Veterans Preference.huh? Well from where I sit I applied for 66 jobs with the US Army and NOT one of them were "Veterans Preference for hiring", (no 5 or 10 points, nothing, why?). And when I talked to the state Veterans rep about that he said "They will hire whoever they want". I have seen this happen too many times. The job opens up on Friday at 4:45 pm, who they want applies for it and the job closes at 5:00 PM, same day. In the meantime I (with qualifications down to the ground and experience up to the sky with security clearances for the past 20 years is made to wait 6 months for the paperwork to clear(?) and their 'cousin' starts work and his clearance is worked on while he is working.. He knows NOTHING about Electronics, NOTHING about weapons AND he spent ZIP time overseas, but he rides a motorcycle with the GANG there so he's good, (probably good at chasing underage girls, but I guess that's a hidden requirement there). I look at in the same words that I wrote to the TACOM Army secretary when she 'waffled' on my complaint to her boss, "The Army helping Veterans, another Bright Shining Lie!" And now you want us Disabled Veterans to give you a job...

By: John

John — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:24:57 +0000

I did a tour in Anbar with civil affairs, working closely with the state dept folks in the PRT/ePRTs. Some decent and knowledgeable people there, but the “less qualified” military personnel ran circles around them. The Marines, Soldiers, and Sailors would go out and talk to the people and put eyes on the situation. The civilians didn’t like to leave the wire, wouldn’t talk to the common folk, and believed every bit of BS the Iraqi leaders told them. There was little to no accountability or performance standard. They wouldn’t share information even with each other because they didn’t want someone to steal the credit for their idea. Some were even trying to direct no bid contracts to their friends. All that for $200-350K for a 1 year tour that included a two week leave every three months. Just when they figure out what they are doing they are gone.

The hiring process for the State Dept contractors was BS too-we had an outstanding Reserve GySgt on his 3rd tour with civil affairs, who had a bachelor degree and wide ranging experience, who couldn’t even get an interview for a State job. Yet in country he was practically running an ePRT and getting amazing results.

By: HungrySeagull

HungrySeagull — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:45:09 +0000

I see a few million new job holders! Ship good Civvies over there and allow them to bring their own protection.

Or ship bad prisoners (Convicts) and tell them that they are free after 4 years work in country. LOL.

By: Byron Skinner

Byron Skinner — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:17:52 +0000

Good Morning Folks,

Thanks LTC Keenan for the kind words, some agreement once in a while is a good for the moral.

To Helen, the Marshall plan saved Europe no doubt about it, and was some of the best money the U.S. ever spent, but sorry to say it doesn’t apply in Afghanistan, the war is still going on.

Contrary to what the elite media is saying it appears that what the U.S. is and have been doing in Afghanistan has shown positive results and we are building on it. The status of women is greatly improving, children are in school. roads are be repaired or built, wells are being dug etc. I guess the new phrase for this is, pick one either “Soft” or as the LA Times is trying to promote, COIN “Light”.

The first thing to do is sh** can the Petraeus COIN manual, the Marines have pointed out the flaws in the COIN manual and are doing it their way as they did in the An Bur in Iraq.

The 2nd MEF and the 2/8 Marines are showing how it can be done. Units are put into communities, they provide security as well as the civil affairs program and handing outbsmall amounts of money to the end recipients to rebuild something or to start an economic enterprise.

An example of this by Marines of the 8th. Regiment, was to obtain for a village woman a foot peddle sewing machine and a small amount of money for her to buy material and notions, like $50.00 in cash, and she went into the business of making shirts. Six months later she had made enough profit to BUY another sewing machine and was employing two other people and had opened a retail shop to sell her shirts.

Jr. Offices tours will overlap and when an officers redeployed to Afghanistan they will go back to the same are where they are know by the locals. The deployed battalions will be relieved by sister battalions from the same Regiment. The Marines have sent the message to the local Taliban of either give it up and come in or we will kill you. This seems to work.

General McChrystan being a disciple of General Petraeus, and way to inclined to use Spec. Ops instead of conventional units at times, should be replaced by Marine General Mattis who from the very beginning in Iraq understood the reconstruction problems and found workable solutions.

Contrary to popular myth the Military does do nation building very well, when they can do it there way from the bottom up. It’s when the Professional State Department types get involve and insist on a top down approach usually working with a corrupt unpopular Government that thing go wrong.

The central government in Afghanistan, if it even deserves to be called a government does not have popular support and is about as corrupt as a government can get. This is the same as the US support for the government of South Vietnam and the same outcome can be expected.

The Taliban and al Qadea need the support of the people to exist and if they are the only alternative to the current corrupt central government then they win, and like in Vietnam everything the U.S. military is for not’.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

By: Drake1

Drake1 — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:06:55 +0000

I heard State under the Bush Administration was doing late in it’s term, but I have no idea what the Obama Administration is doing?

By: TMB

TMB — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:38:37 +0000

None of the civilian experts nor even State Department officials in Iraq and Afghanistan are there because they have to be — all of them are volunteers. You’d have to massively expand and streamline the hiring effort and probably force large number of State Dept. employees to go on these missions to have any hope of duplicating the scale of the military’s nation building efforts.

By: Michael J. Keenan

Michael J. Keenan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:06:29 +0000

Skinner, Tamber, and jdd have hit the mark. The regular State Department folks have neither the experience nor the numbers to do the job of nation building. The active Army and Marines are great at winning battles, but not building countries. The source of the nation builders is the reserve components. There are thousands of them currently serving who could do this mission. In Addition, there are many thousands more who are retired who could help. All the data on civilian occupations should be in the computers in St. Louis. We could have cut through the paperwork B/S and put these folks on the ground years ago. They are all trained and can provide their own security without the need for combat troops to cover them.

The government needs to think out of the box and get its collective head out of its collective fourth point of contact.

LTC MIke

By: helen h

helen h — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:43:27 +0000

The countries rebuilt fell under the Marshall Plan. Look at Japan and Gernany today!

By: jdd

jdd — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:05:30 +0000

Guard and Reserve Soldiers who have these civilian skills and experience may serve best in these “civilian’ positions.

By: Tenn Slim

Tenn Slim — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:00:27 +0000

ALL
Tamber’s post hits the nail square. THE OBNA Civil Beaurcracy truly is not interested in solving the AFG and IRAQ problem. Nor are they interested in Civilian Participation. Less is better, as it supports the Leftist agenda of Isolation, Failure of the USA FP issues.
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