Where are my boots?
...t spending, then the rest of the military budget must lessen spending capabilities to make up the difference. The areas that were hit hardest were training, maintenance, and personnel. To belay the cost of a standing army, the government eliminated many of the military’s jobs which they re-classified as non-combative and contracted these jobs to outside civilian entities. These jobs included a bevy of service and support occupations like supply, transportation, laundry and bath, sewing, and food service. Also included in the cuts were force protection positions such as combat support forces and base security (military police). The belief was that outsourcing these jobs to civilian contractors would save money. In actuality, what it did do was create a situation that downsized the military and left many soldiers looking without a job. They had to be retrained in another Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), and/or be transferred into another unit. A pattern of relocation and retraining developed throughout the military establishment. All the spending for training, travel, housing, food, fuel, etc…so the government could save money. This obviously cost more money. This practice of privatizing the military provided the United States with services ranging from construction, food service, and logistics to security and special operations services that are classified secret and on the front lines. Chalmers Johnson provides an idea of the magnitude that is involved when he states, “Private military companies and private contractors have become indispensable to the operations of more than 700 military bases around the world (Johnson, 2004, p.146)”. This creates a military that is no longer an organization that works in the framework of standards. With so many separate organizations for the military to coordinate with, it is next to impossible to find a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). These are a set of rules and regulations that the military unit abide by to retain equilibrium among many unit commands. Cohesion is in integral in any military endeavor, but most especially in issues of equipping and supplying soldiers. This change in the military would have a tremendous, negative effect on the conduct of the Iraq war that the Bush Administration was ushering the nation towards. These changes started to affect my military career in the early 1990's. I had been in the Ohio Army National Guard for nine years and recently passed a military promotions board for the rank of staff sergeant when my unit, Bravo Company, 112th Engineers, was ordered to relocate, absorb a whole other Engineering company, and within a year, return to the original numbers of one unit. This left approximately 140 soldiers in the position described above. I had to give up my newly acquired staff sergeant position by taking an administrative reduction in rank to facilitate a transfer to another Guard unit in my home area, the 637th Field Service Company. This was a unit that provided laundry, showers, sewing, baking, and mortuary services. At the same time, the service and support elements of the National Guard were ordered to stand down because of the privatization process. I was retrained in the Field Service MOS even though it was being removed before I even finished the schooling for it. At this point, the 637th was now another whole company that needed to find a home. Fortunately, there was an undermanned transportation unit that needed soldiers. The 637th was able to procure the positions and have the headquarters transferred to their command. Thus, in 1996, the 637th morphed into the 1484th Transportation Company. The entire unit had to be retrained for the new MOS. These events required money to be spent in the effort to curb spending. The changes in the military and the policies on privatization of positions are the root causes for the rise in spending. The manipulation of American perception of our foreign policy and worldview by the Bush Administration changed things as well. President Bush outlined the goals for the nation in his State of the Union Address in January 2003. The first goal was economic growth. The second was high quality, affordable medical insurance for all Americans. The third was to promote energy independence while improving the environment. The fourth, and final goal was more of a plea to apply the compassion of Americans to solving problems such as the homeless, the hungry, and the abused (Bush, 28 January 2003). These were the goals the President detailed just a month before going to war with Iraq. He does go on to talk about the fight against terrorism, but in Afghanistan, not Iraq. He discusses terrorist actions that were foiled in Yemen, China, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, France, and the United States; no mention of Iraq. Al-Quaeda is mentioned as the perpetrator of the terrorist actions. However; its leader, Osama bin Laden is not. Saddam Hussein is mentioned and is somehow tied into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Mr. Bush makes a direct link between the Cold War and the present when he said, "Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to arise in Iraq (Bush, 28 January 2003). This statement does nothing but suggest that a threat should be dealt with before it can be acted upon. This is the rebirth of the Cold War attitudes and an incitement to preemptive warfare. Mr. Bush then details a list of chemical and biological weaponry that Iraq is assumed to possess as of the late 1990's. What he does fail to mention is the fact that the active shelf life on these chemicals is long past. According to David Albright, physicist and former UN weapons inspector, if Iraq does have any of them, they would be useless (Greenwald, Uncovered: The War on Iraq, 2004). After describing all of the terrible probabilities of possible terrorist actions that may be perpetrated against the United States, Mr. Bush implies that Iraq was involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001. He states, "Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained (Bush, 28 January 2003)". He made this statement in such a way as to mislead the American public. This statement was made in 2003, yet there is no mention as to what year the date refers to. It could be any year because the date is arbitrary. It could have been any date mentioned. The Bush Administration chose that date because it knew that Americans would automatically relate it to the terrorist attacks of 2001. With the mention of Saddam Hussein, the Administration also knew that Americans would automatically assume that he had perpetrated the attacks. This is a blatant example of the Administration feeding the fear of terrorism to gain support of its policies of military expansion and global dominance thinly disguised as a war on terrorism. This Cold War attitude that is disguised as a war on terrorism has enabled the Bush Administration to rule the American public, and the Congress, with fear. This situation led to Congress giving the authority to declare war directly to the executive office on October 10, 2002. The United States Constitution had separated the powers of the commander-in-chief and Congressional war powers for a legitimate reason. That much power should not be in the hands of one part of government, and in this case, one man. The United States was then rushed into a war with Iraq under the pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that it was prepared to use them against the United States directly or through terrorist organizations. The trickery and deceit of the Bush Administration duped America into entering into a new Cold War known as a war on terrorism. These policies have led to inflated deficits and military expenditures, the spreading thin of an already stressed military, and an American public that lives in fear of a terrorist attack that may or may not occur. The Bush Administration chooses to rule the nation by fear and deceit. The Bush Administration steered the nation towards a war in Iraq. This of course created a struggle between the military leadership and the civilian leadership in the Pentagon. One of the chief architects was Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense. "Rumsfeld's team of conspirators took over crucial aspects of the day-to-day logistical planning-traditionally an area in which the uniformed military excels-and Rumsfeld repeatedly overruled the senior Pentagon planners on the Joint Staff, the operating arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'He thought he knew better,' one senior official said. 'He was the decision maker at every turn (Hersh, 2004, p.249)'". The Joint Chiefs of Staff all agreed that the men and women of the armed forces were stretched thin, under stressful conditions; however, prepared for a confrontation in Iraq. As to the issue of the occupying force in post-war Iraq, they all agreed that a U.S.-only armed security force would not happen without long-term negative effects for the U.S. military. The head of the Chiefs of Staff, General Eric K. Shinseki, put it as delicately as possible, without outright denial of success, when he said, "Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful (Senate Armed Services Committee Report, 25 February 2003)". (As the head of the U.S. armed forces, you are not going to tell the government that you are unable to do your job, but you will give them hints as to how they can best aid you in your ability to perform your job.) With the rush to war, the first week of the war was already producing problems that the Chiefs of Staff had warned about during the hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "In the first week, the ground campaign against Saddam Hussein faltered, with attenuated supply lines and a lack of immediate reinforcements, and the first reaction in the Pentagon was anger (Hersh, 2004, p.249)". They were angry because Rumsfeld had made the plans, implemented them, and when they turned sour, pointed to the Chiefs as having all the responsibility. This made the military look very foolish and inept. These actions are detailed to demonstrate the relationship that the Bush Administration has fostered with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military as a whole. This illuminates the abuses of power perpetrated by the Administration to gain unilateral control of government and the military fighting force that champions its precepts. The Bush Administration acted in a roguish manner when they disregarded the opinion of their own experts, usurped the executive control over the armed forces, and took the United States down a one way road to failure by entering alone into a war that would require an occupying force consisting of allied nations to remain and secure the area. The Administration is bent on world domination in the military arena at the cost of American lives and the Democratic form of government that so many have died defending. I served my country in the military for eighteen honorable years. During which time I spent nine years in the Army Corps of Engineers (1986-1995), three years in the Transportation Corps (1995-1999), one year as a Navy Seabee in the Naval Construction Battalion (1999), one year break in service, two years in the Armored Calvary Division (2001-2003), and finally, one more year, involuntarily, in the 1485th Transportation Company (2003-2004) serving in the Iraq War. I witnessed first hand the effects that the changes to the military have wrought. I will detail the problems that the military had in supplying the troops in combat, as a result of the aforementioned changes and decisions of the Bush Administration, through the experience of the 1485th Transportation Company in Iraq. The primary mission of the 1485th was to supply the front line units during the Iraq War and during the post-war occupation. The problems that occurred with equipment and supplies for the military in Iraq, originated with the private contractors. An Armed Forces Press report, an interview with General John W. Handy; who leads the Air Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, and is the commander of the United States Transportation Command, details the problems with the military's supply chain and distribution system. General Handy describes incidents that occurred through April and June 2003, where 4,500 direct shipments from Defense Department vendors arrived at Dover AFB, Delaware, and "None of the cargo in the shipment had proper documentation, or was known about when it arrived at the aerial port by truck (Armed Forces Press Service, 11 December 2003)". When this occurs, the shipments are segregated from the rest of the supplies, designated ...