So this morning, a neighbor of mine stops by for a cup of coffee. He works for the Army as a civilian. They let him work from home 4 days a week. He's got a fancy setup on his phone that lets him be very mobile. Me and this fella go way back and it's nice having a friend as solid as he is.
This morning I can see he's got something bubbling inside. He shows me a .pdf of his agency's version of an Early Bird. What it says in there is that the Army is 25% below strength and that there's a pretty strong likelihood of it getting worse before it gets better. Our thoughts on this go right away to the 75% the Army does have: a few new guys who haven't figured life out yet and an entrenched DEI core who I don't think have the guts to face an armed and determined adversary ... let alone the capabilities of winning.
Now right here I want to point out another article that was in that .pdf. It pointed out that GEN Milley is going to retire with a security detail to protect him, much like a retired POTUS enjoys the company of the Secret Service. (I wonder if they have to protect him if he's in jail ?). The title of the story had something to do with this security detail 'trawling social media' for mean tweets about these chunts (the 'h' is silent in that word, BTW).
Most folks who understand business know the costs of your employees are usually equal to about one-half the total cost of doing business. It can be different, but the cost of paying someone to work for you is significant. Now if the Army isn't paying 25% of its personnel costs, but it's projecting that cost, and the gooberment is collecting taxes from us to pay for them ... do you wonder why all these generals need an armed security detail around them? Can you imagine what that armed security detail must cost? Remember ... if you see one guy on shift, there are four other guys waiting to take shifts behind him. Yes!! That many!! If it's a four-man detail, there are 20 guys on the payroll just to protect the asshole who said he'd tip-off China before we attacked them.
Anyway, I stewed on that all morning and figured I'd share. If it gets under your skin, do me a favor and don't copy/paste this in the note to your Congress Critter. The main article came out of the Washington Examiner: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/resto...eritocracy