Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.: Kos has a very frightening tidbit of future Bushista plans…
A reliable source tells me that RAND has been contracted by the government to come up with a way to avoid instituting a draft, despite the desperate needs for more combat forces.
The solution? Outsource desk and logistics jobs to private companies while pushing those ‘chairborne’ warriors out of their offices into fighting units.
Logisitic troops make up the vast majority of military personnel (somebody probably has the figure, but it’s like 8-1 or 9-1 support to combat forces). The proposal would dramatically increase the number of fighting forces (though many of soldiers in support jobs will have no business being in the front lines), and the Haliburtons of the world would clean up taking over support functions.
One other thought — female soldiers are generally relegated to non-combat support occupations. Would combat units be opened up to women in this scenario?
Wonderful. We’re going to take administrative pegs and force them into eleven-bravo (infantryman) holes. You think morale is bad now? Wait until a few thousand out-of-shape desk-softened battle-virgin paper-jockeys get shipped to the front lines. The accountants, supply clerks, and administrators will be terrified as they drop off like flies and the real warriors will be scared of the newbies FUBARring the missions and getting the real warriors killed. And if you think National Guard and Reserve recruitment is falling off now, wait until it’s a guarantee you’ll get deployed to Iraq and a guarantee there’s no job left that won’t be deployed. Hoo-ah!