You’re Not Wearing That Are You?
September 23rd, 2009 - 10:34 am
The only example we have in this country of single-payer anything is in military procurement. And get this: the Army spent several years and five billion dollars on new camouflage uniforms — and bought an urban pattern.
The Army, although no one should need any reminding, is fighting wars in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan.
Now let’s us keep in mind that this is the best military we ever fielded — and procurement is still such a mess-up that it takes years to spend too much money buying the wrong effing shirts. The Pentagon isn’t evil or stupid; it’s just government.
So — think your insurance company is bad? Wait until it has all the same incentives as the Pentagon.
Not to mention that, if there is such waste & fraud in Medicare & Medicaid that $500 billion in cuts will not affect services, just imagine how much waste & fraud there’ll be when everyone is on the government healthcare plan.
Isn’t a whole lot of that “desert” fighting in Iraq actually in Iraq’s urban areas?
And according to this, the modified urban pattern they chose is said by soldiers to be effective in desert conditions.
Now, it’s said to be not so good in jungles or tropical areas, but that’s hardly an issue in Central Asia, is it?
The pattern they chose is probably not the “best” single pattern, but it seems to be non-disastrous in desert areas, and good for urban ones; and unless we have five or six different uniform sets, and enough to go around to outfit nearly everyone, in advance of knowing what we need, it’s absolutely inevitable that a large number of troops will be stuck with “wrong” camo.
I’m not sure that even matters in most cases; from what I’ve read, the vast majority of troops (especially in Iraq) seem to be vehicle-mounted rather than on foot or trying to blend in with the desert or mountains. The special forces in Afghanistan can, I imagine, customize their uniforms as needed, as that’s one of the age-old perks of being special forces.
When you’re in a HMMWV or Stryker, your uniform’s fine-tuned camo pattern is not so important, after all.
Given all that, I’m willing to give the Army a C+ or B- overall on this; I don’t really see a significant scandal from the readily available information. Any significant input from Afghanistan to the contrary would be enlightening.
That’s no accident – do a bit more looking and you’ll find they’re making all sorts of preparations for ops here at home.
Hopefully there will be enough who understand their oath – and KEEP it – to prevent the obvious result…
DD
I dunno – I want to agree with Sigivald, but this has too much red to be effective.
I agree with Dedicated_Dad. There is much concern not for protecting the citizens of this country, but defending against them.
Sigivald is right; most of the fighting in Iraq has been in urban terrain, and the pattern selected worked very well for that environment. So the choice made very good sense at the time.
Alas, the same cannot be said for Afghanistan, and the Army has been learning that the same pattern is less effective there.
No big deal; no surprise. These things happen.
I might add that Strategypage.com discussed this issue more than a few months ago. It has only just now percolated into the general consciousness.
And Stephen – no disrespect, but there’s a reason that we got SNAFU and FUBAR from the military.