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John, do you remember the draft? Well, you must know that we don't do that anymore. We are solely dependent on a volunteer military force.
I don't know Dick Cheney so he couldn't have written my message. It doesn't matter that enlisted personnel don't have college degrees. The military has to encourage people to sign up with offers of pursuing their desired career. Laundry isn't usually on the top of the list. Just like any other institution the military has to offer something different. I didn't say the military did not need cooks. I said that very few enlisted people want to cook, do laundry, and clean toilets. Because they are volunteers, they don't have to sign up, and they don't have to stay once they get there. How many people would choose to stay in order to do laundry?
It's called outsourcing, John; it can save resources (also known as taxpayer money) and not every company is able to provide and maintain the resources and personnel necessary to operate a military base. Your ordinary Mom & Pop shop can't do it. And yes, the military has suffered regular budget cuts over the last 40 years. All of the recent presidential administrations have made cuts to the military budget.
This is not Gomer Pyle. Things are different now. You gotta stop watching Nick at Nite.
What's wrong with profit? It is true that the profit motive should not be the impetus for everything...and in many instances it isn't. I believe that if you do a job you should be paid for it unless you have chosen to volunteer or to do it out of the goodness of your heart. If no companies made a profit, we would all be in trouble. Besides, many of us have some of our retirement invested in Haliburton as institutional investments.
If we don't want to be Wal-Mart greeters after retirement, we'd better hope Haliburton makes a profit...so we can, too.
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"In the days before volcanoes were invented, lava had to be hand carried down from the mountains and poured on the sleeping villagers.
This took a great deal of time."
----- Original Message -----
From: John Stafford Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, July 31, 2009 10:42 am
Subject: Re: Did Making a Profit Become the Only Reason to Do Anything?
To: [log in to unmask]
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> VISIT AFRICAN ASSOCIATION OF MADISON WEBSITE
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> Vera, not to comment on everything you say, but with all due respect,
> you say the most oddly provocative things. Did Dick Cheney write this
> for you? So even though Haliburton has a no bid, unlimited contract,
> you say salaries are still paid by the MNE and no one is profiting?
> Also, the overwhelming majority of enlistees do not have degrees, and
> are seeking employment and careers (blacks and hispanics according to
> the Pew foundation are "over-represented" in the enlisted ranks) not
> available to them otherwise. Officers have degrees. What did the
> military do day-to-day during peace time that was so overtaxing that
> it no longer needed cooks? What happened to institutional chef as a career?
>
> And budget cuts? Give us a break. If you can't remember the vast
> amounts of money spent on weapons systems by the two recent, pre-9/11
> republican administrations, systems that failed to protect us here at
> home and so, must be proven by their abilities to "shock and awe" the
> citizens of Baghdad and Kabul, who is going to remember the term 'baby
> killer' as something other than a monicker wrongly associated with
> certain doctors?
>
> John
>
>
> On Jul 31, 2009, at 9:10 AM, VERA R CROWELL wrote:
>
> >********************************************************
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> >From the article: "Did you know, for example, that there was a time
> when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war
> zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work
> for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than
> American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the
> troops used to do for themselves -- like laundry. War is not supposed
> to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons
> manufacturers and connected civilian contractors."
> >
> >I agree with a lot of the article. However, with respect to the
> military, I must say this. What did everyone think would happen when
> the word 'soldier' became synonymous with 'baby-killer?' Did they
> really think that people would continue to enlist? No. They probably
> didn't think about it at all. However, we need a military. The armed
> forces had to become competitive in order to attract people. No one
> was going to enlist and risk public ostracizing and being spit upon in
> order to do laundry, peel potatoes, and clean toilets. The budget cuts
> meant that the military had to become more reliant on technology which
> meant they needed more educated people to join. Who wants to get a
> degree and endure basic training to do laundry? No one. Those tasks
> had to be done, so, in order to save money, the military had to
> outsource the care and feeding of our military to private companies.
> >
> >I had a class with a guy who was operations manager for a military
> base in Iraq. He worked for a mulitnational and was responsible for
> the approximately 550 people required to operate that base. He was
> also responsible for the purchasing necessary to keep it running.
> Outsourcing base operations relieves the military of the day to day
> details and costs required. We the taxpayers didn't pay those
> salaries, fringes, and bonuses directly, the MNE did. It's no
> different from any other company that chooses to outsource part of
> their operations in order to save money, time, and resources.
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