Ronald Of Arabia wacking a golf ball off of the balcony of Al Faw Palace, home of USF-I Headquarters
The problem of how to get everyone out on a decent timeline persists at another "we gotta figure this out" conference at USF-I. As referenced below, everyone wants to go, but no one wants to go home because we assess we that need everything up to the last minute. Here's my plan for how to do it by 31 December:
Start with all of the goofy headquarters by making things uncomfortable.
Make them show an honest "Troops to Task" list (the kind they always ask us for) that shows exactly who does what in their headquarters, and then painfully question why one general needs a personal staff of six Public Affairs guys, a 30-man PSD, a Secretary, a Civilian Administrative Assistant, an Aide de Camp, and a reservations Clerk at the VIP hotel (I am making this up, but I don't imagine I am too far off).
Then start making people move CHUs (Containerized housing unit- basically a mobile home that Soldiers live in).
Have them move a lot.
At a minimum, move all of the acronym headquarters people 2-3 times a month. Move them into CHUs without working air conditioners. Make the higher ups turn in their suburbans and have them ride in tactical vehicles around the Victory Base Complex. Then ration the gas. Shut off the commercial internet in the CHUs. Then get rid of the contracted restaurants- Shut down the coffee shops, pizza joints, concessions, local vendor stores, and souvenir shops.
Stock the PX with only one kind of shaving cream, one kind of razor, one kind of toothpaste, one kind of bar soap.
Then get rid of all the deoderant.
Then, each unit has a Class I account for food and drinks (seperate from the chow hall). All that is in this thing is sugary snacks and sodas anyway, so shut that down (except for the Diet Coke). Start rationing power and shut down generators randomly. Remove all the air conditioners from the CHUs. Reduce the size of available tactical bandwidth, and force units to simultaneously turn in all their non-tactical vehicles (make everybody walk) and then downsize tactical vehicles and containers.
Then ration each Soldier to five gallons of water a day for everything.
Folks should be pretty bitter by now.
Next step: Get rid of the KBR four square meals a day in the big air conditioned DFAC and serve only MREs. Send all of the contracted manual labor home-- Dudes need to start taking their own trash out.
At this point, this should disband all of the goofy big giant made up headquarters and their bloated staffs and most of these will go home. For the ones that still stick around, get rid of the Triple Canopy contracted guard force and tax every unit left to provide Soldiers to guard the walls.
Then, stop selling tobacco products.
For the hardcores that just won't leave, do away with the sanitation contracts, and get Soldiers back to disposing of human waste the old fasioned way we did it before: Pour Diesel on it and set it on fire and stir liberally. For hours.
Remember: The war cost the taxpayer $800 billion for a reason. I submit if we did this in August, most would be more than ready to go by September.
Just a thought.
Of note: 15 March is a "double post day" so be sure to see the next one below too!
See ya,
Ron
Start with all of the goofy headquarters by making things uncomfortable.
Make them show an honest "Troops to Task" list (the kind they always ask us for) that shows exactly who does what in their headquarters, and then painfully question why one general needs a personal staff of six Public Affairs guys, a 30-man PSD, a Secretary, a Civilian Administrative Assistant, an Aide de Camp, and a reservations Clerk at the VIP hotel (I am making this up, but I don't imagine I am too far off).
Then start making people move CHUs (Containerized housing unit- basically a mobile home that Soldiers live in).
Have them move a lot.
At a minimum, move all of the acronym headquarters people 2-3 times a month. Move them into CHUs without working air conditioners. Make the higher ups turn in their suburbans and have them ride in tactical vehicles around the Victory Base Complex. Then ration the gas. Shut off the commercial internet in the CHUs. Then get rid of the contracted restaurants- Shut down the coffee shops, pizza joints, concessions, local vendor stores, and souvenir shops.
Stock the PX with only one kind of shaving cream, one kind of razor, one kind of toothpaste, one kind of bar soap.
Then get rid of all the deoderant.
Then, each unit has a Class I account for food and drinks (seperate from the chow hall). All that is in this thing is sugary snacks and sodas anyway, so shut that down (except for the Diet Coke). Start rationing power and shut down generators randomly. Remove all the air conditioners from the CHUs. Reduce the size of available tactical bandwidth, and force units to simultaneously turn in all their non-tactical vehicles (make everybody walk) and then downsize tactical vehicles and containers.
Then ration each Soldier to five gallons of water a day for everything.
Folks should be pretty bitter by now.
Next step: Get rid of the KBR four square meals a day in the big air conditioned DFAC and serve only MREs. Send all of the contracted manual labor home-- Dudes need to start taking their own trash out.
At this point, this should disband all of the goofy big giant made up headquarters and their bloated staffs and most of these will go home. For the ones that still stick around, get rid of the Triple Canopy contracted guard force and tax every unit left to provide Soldiers to guard the walls.
Then, stop selling tobacco products.
For the hardcores that just won't leave, do away with the sanitation contracts, and get Soldiers back to disposing of human waste the old fasioned way we did it before: Pour Diesel on it and set it on fire and stir liberally. For hours.
Remember: The war cost the taxpayer $800 billion for a reason. I submit if we did this in August, most would be more than ready to go by September.
Just a thought.
Of note: 15 March is a "double post day" so be sure to see the next one below too!
See ya,
Ron
3 comments:
I must admit I got more than a few chuckles out of this, your latest posting!! Is August in that "neck of the woods" as warm as it can get here in Central Texas...or warmer? In that case, with all the "take aways" in place, you can just bet that they would indeed be ready to go within the month!! Thanks so much for keeping us up-to-date, once again...I look forward to all your postings.
Looks like we need to move out of the palaces and take away the golf clubs and golf balls too. -MWPB
Just got home from sunny Iraq and all I can say to this is "amen". Well put, sir.
LT Ockrassa
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