Bodyguards?
Movies?

Yeah and it's only paid if they actually show up.

The military has wanted to make large cuts for years. There are way too many bases.

The trouble of course is that there are many bases not for military reasons, but political reasons. Every base is a case cow for some congressional district. Everyone wants cuts—in someone else's district.

They have independent base closure panels, and then many of their recommendations are overturned as the congress critters align to fight it (here in NM one of the few things the dems and reps agree on and cooperate on 100% as a delegation is to never touch ANY of our bases unless it's to make them bigger!).

Still, the bulk of cuts need to be SS and Medicare or pretty much all is lost.

Heh, I can think of a few ways the USAF can cut costs.

Put the fighter mafia out of power. Those high tech jets they want so much? F22, JSF, etc etc, wahtever whatever.......Do we *REALLY* need those when F16's, F15's, etc seem to be doing the job admirably?

Stop spending so much damn money on base beautification. As an AF Civil Engineer, ive spent time on Air bases, Army camps, and a NCTC. Air bases look MUCH nicer, and it is unneccessary.

For example, ive helped to installed fencing on one Airbase, that looks kinda like this:
http://www.bellprivacyfence.com/images/IMG_1397.JPG
This type of fencing is NOT cheap, and we put it up all over the place. A chain link fence with a stretch of canvas would have accomplished the same thing, for 1/4 to 1/2 the cost. But nooooooo. The General wanted a pretty base more then functional equipment. (I hate Toy Bases)

The "Spend all the money or we won't get as much next year" system needs to be redone. For those that don't know. Government agencies are alloted a fiscal budget. They get so much money a year. If they do not spend it, they don't get as much next year. From a big picture standpoint this makes sense. Why give an area more money that what they use and drive costs up? The trouble is at a local level these agencies are fearful of not having enough money to get their job done next fiscal year. So they make sure they spend ALL they money they get ever year, however they can.

The end result? At the end of the fiscal year, you have 1 and 2 stripe airman being "issued" 50+ dollar tools, that they do not sign a hand receipt for. Which means, they don't have to give them back. If you never signed for it, its yours to keep. So Dear taxpayer, Thank your my Leatherman, my Super leatherman, Gerber multifunction tool, and Makita cordless drill. All free, on your dime.

I kid you not, at one base i saw a guy going through the CE compound literally tossing these things out of a crate at anyone who wanted one. Naturally, we ALL did, who'd pass that up? (They were THAT desperate to spend the rest of the budget) Of course this was 14 years ago. Maybe times have changed. (I doubt it).

Most of them aren't in it for the pay, if pay was the reason they would be elsewhere running law firms. Many are in it for the after effect, those high paying lobbiest jobs, sitting on boards, etc... I think you could pay them 0 and 90% of the same people would still run.

As for defense cuts, shut down those many left over cold war bases in Europe, restructure and place them on our southern border protecting America.

High ranking officers!

US Military is way too top heavy for the force structure they have.

Completely agree.

I'm not in favor of closing more stateside bases though. We've concentrated our forces far too much already. There should be at least one military base in every state.

What do you think about closing the oversea bases?

Or scaling them way back?

Our enemies are overseas. Waiting for them to come to us would be stupid. :03:

He said close permanent overseas bases, not eliminate our response capability. Engineers can whip up a functional base in a few days. We're paying a lot of money to keep units stationed in Germany for example that no longer serve much purpose, at least not enough to justify their expense.

What about stocks of propositioned gear?

What about our overseas ELINT stations?

Are the Engineers going to built them under fire? (I'm not talking about a few pots shots with a sniper rifle here, I mean heavy attacks.)

It takes comparatively few troops to run an Elint station or maintain a warehouse. We're talking combat troops and their dependents. What is the advantage to keeping a few divisions in, say Europe, that could not be achieved back in CONUS?

I say get rid of the dependents, for one.

I'm thinking less europe more asia.

How long would it take to get several divisions mobilized and fully transported over seas. Key word seas, the heavy gear needs to go by ship. 72 hours to get underway? Another 48 to cross the Pacific? Basically a week, the $heet could be over by then.

Well base closings are not an all or nothing proposition. Keep what you need and close the rest.

But I hear your point about deployment time. You just need to remember that you're also putting those troops way out on a limb. Look at 1942 Philippines. We lost a lot of desperately needed troops and materiel that could have been used elsewhere.

well I think holding the Philippines in 42 was not a bad thing. If the fleet was not crippled the Philippines would have been a great place to stage an attack against Japan, that was the basis of the old War Plan Orange. If Mac Arthur's air force wasn't annihilated on the ground it could have been a real pain in the Japanese's backside. I know some of MA's officers wanted to bomb Formosa right away but the decision got postponed right up until the B-17s got plastered.

Holding the Philippines would have helped cut off the Japanese from the Dutch East Indies. Save the oil of the Dutch East Indies and you deny the Japanese one of their main reasons for starting the war with the Allies. If anything we should have fortified the islands more.