your views
Expenses and Uncertainty
Thanks for a great magazine and the article “Leading Amid Uncertainty” [July 2013]. When I entered the Navy, we were told to not waste or even appear to waste. But it can be hard to stop, even in my own home and business. I have seen new roads torn up for sewers and parking lots built where a building was to be demolished and not replaced. During war games, a contractor sent me a 70-cent eyedropper wrapped in three boxes with about $18 postage. I watched a congressional hearing where contractors were charging [the U.S.] multiple [Morale, Welfare and Recreation] fees per soldier visit when only one per visit was legal.
It is reported the Pentagon doesn’t have any idea of expenses and that something like $50 billion to $80 billion in cash was “lost” in Iraq. A photo in this article shows a table full of bottled water, which seems kind of wasteful. The best-run military base I served [at] was during severe budget cuts. Captain Woods, an engineer and our commanding officer at Roosevelt Roads, constantly searched out and eliminated paper, electrical, landfill, and other waste. I hope [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Martin E.] Dempsey can do the same.
—Cmdr. J.D. Barnett, USN (Ret)
via email
"Until military leadership puts military health care in the special light it deserves, Congress will have to force the military to do the right thing."
—Lt. Col. Winston J. Shaffer II, USAF (Ret)
While I was reading “Leading Amid Uncertainty,” I could not help but think that history does repeat itself over and over. An Army general waxing and waning about how he does not have enough equipment, new weapon system toys, or training and that his troops must sacrifice for the good of the Army is nothing new. It was Congress that forced the Army to have livable housing years ago and still does. There is always one more weapon system, battalion, etcetera that the Army needs. Wouldn’t it be amazing if an Army general whose compensation will never allow him to feel the pinch of health care [said], “We made a promise to these soldiers to provide health care. I will make our military health care the best and most cost-efficient health care in the world, deserving of the best fighting force the world has ever seen”?
President George Washington was right when he stated, “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”
There is so much waste in military health care that even a blind man could perform successful surgery in reducing waste. I have seen a great deal of it, and I am sure if DoD [were] really interested, many real cuts could be made. Depending on “military medical generals” to provide real solutions is like having the fox improving the chicken coop. Nonetheless, the Army and DoD should treat health care as a sunk cost for the long-term survival of the Army and to honor the pledges it made. Until military leadership puts military health care in the special light it deserves, Congress will have to force the military to do the right thing, as they have so many times before.
—Lt. Col. Winston J. Shaffer II, USAF (Ret)
Life Member, MOAA Alamo (Texas) Chapter
via email
Remembering Korea
I was speaking to a couple of [Korean War veterans] and both were a little perplexed over your use of the term “armistice”[“Legacies of the Korean War,” July 2013]. …
These veterans were very clear that to them, as announced up and down their chains of commands, on July 27, 1953, the war’s end was a “cease-fire.” That was the term they clearly understood and the one they carried home to their demobilization or future military service. Those who continued to serve learned that cease-fire was actually an armistice (the technical terminology), but that was not the case for the thousands who returned to their civilian lives. (Most didn’t know and could [not] have cared less.)
—Lt. Col. Ray Monroe, USA (Ret)
Burke, Va.
16 MILITARY OFFICER SEPTEMBER 2013
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