USMC size reduction

[Lynn2]

"Nobody cooks SOS better than a Marine cook and that's a fact."

I have eaten Navy, MC, and AirForce food. Give me an AF cook any day.

But tell me the relative cost for one year of a cooks time. An experienced cook contractor that is required to be a fully trained prior, hired under contract to cook for a year.

Vs some kid that shows up at the recruiter, goes through dep (include the recruiters time)goes to boot camp (include the time of those whop do the training). Goes to MCT. Goes to MOS school. And then hits the fleet to begin his non-combat job as a cook.

What is the exact difference in cost for a year of cooking between these two?

[Quinbo]

Which someones limited experience are you talking about?

[Lynn2]

Which someones limited experience are you talking about?

Everyones.

We make judgements based on what we have seen and what we think works. Those experiences are in fact limited.

What I am really interested is those cost figures. Because its only actual cost figures that can give an indication whether doing something one way is less expensive and maybe more effective than doing it a different way.

You have made some claims. I do not think you have the data to support them.

And I do not have the data to argue against you. Data comes from serious well thought out studies.

Then and only then would you have any clue as to whether we would be better off with Army/Navy/contractor people running the USMC warehouses or Army/Navy/Contractors doing the cooking.

I honestly see no reason why you have to have a Marine to work in a warehouse or cook eggs in many if not most situations.

[Quinbo]

We're talking apples and oranges now. I said no one makes SOS better than a Marine cook. In that context it is just as good in a GP tent as it is in a 5 star restaurant.

Back on topic .... keeping some chores in house is cheaper than contracting them out.

After the persian gulf war the Marine Corps went through a reduction in forces and went so far as to offer exit bonuses. They further went to to hold re-enlistment boards for first termers and if not competitive among your peers you were denied re enlistment.

You ever heard of bill clintons reduction in forces plan?

Additonally contractor can't grab a rifle and run to the guns.

[Lynn2]

"keeping some chores in house is cheaper than contracting them out."

OK I hear your opinion. And of course when you say "some" that means that you can almost never be wrong. Because even if one tiny tiny small thing is cheaper-----you would be correct----once you hedged.

"keeping some chores out of house with non-Marine personal is cheaper" is also a true statement.

But you only make a truly intelligent argument with numbers and data.

Because without real numbers this is nothing but your opinion based on your very limited experiences. Or my opinion based on my very limited experiences.

Both equally worthless except as anecdotal evidence.

[Quinbo]

Possibly it is just perception and not numbers crunching. Lets take sea duty for an example. A post previously manned by a PFC in the Marine Corps is now manned by a petty officer second class in the Navy. I'm fairly certain that a PO2 earns more than a PFC and the cost of his training was greater.

All that really accomplishes is, and it is a good concept, and why contrators are utilized. That young PFC is now available to fight while his navy counterpart or in some instances contractor counter part gets a larger check to go and work a 9-5.

My opinion only .... some contractors have over all bloated the defense department budget.

[BR34]

"Nobody cooks SOS better than a Marine cook and that's a fact."

I have eaten Navy, MC, and AirForce food. Give me an AF cook any day.

But tell me the relative cost for one year of a cooks time. An experienced cook contractor that is required to be a fully trained prior, hired under contract to cook for a year.

Vs some kid that shows up at the recruiter, goes through dep (include the recruiters time)goes to boot camp (include the time of those whop do the training). Goes to MCT. Goes to MOS school. And then hits the fleet to begin his non-combat job as a cook.

What is the exact difference in cost for a year of cooking between these two?

I really don't think civilian cooks get a whole lot of training to do the jobs they do in Marine Corps chow halls. All they need to know how to do is open a packet and heat it up (aside from sanitation, customer service, etc).

[The DUKE]

I thought the new age mentality was to utilize contractors in situations that could be handled by civilian personell during any one specific conflict.
So that when the said conflict was over they wouldnt have to reduce the forces by so many on account of no longer needed 3000 cooks, 5000 truck drivers, 10,000 office personel, 25000 secretaries.
That sort of thing, so that when it was over they could easily fold back into the civilian work force and we wouldnt be sending military personell out there to become civies due to no longer needing them to do what the civi contrators had done?
Also I watched a book revue this past weekend, on PBS, the author was talking about sort of the same thing in this forum.
He was telling the interviewer that back in the day Harry S. Truman had put forth the intention to disolve the USMC entirely, due to the wonder invention of the "BOMB". Harry figured that since we had this new wonder weapon and that after we demonstrated the willingness to use it to keep world peace that no one would ever again challenge us to armed conflict.
So he sent a memo to the senate to consider the abolition of the USMC in its entirety.
So I wouldnt be the least bit suprised to see something of this sort come up in the not too distant future.
I mean think about it, now we have super new wonder weapons, romote guided missles, drones, bunker buster bombs, laser guided things, stealth fighters, bombers, what do we need the Corp for anymore?
So keep you ears peeled to the goings on of DC with this in mind. We may just have become obsolete gentlemen.

[Integrity57]

I don't think those civilians working in the chow halls really make too much money, at least the ones I saw. Most of them rode the bus to work or drove beaters and didn't look like they had much money in the bank and I'm pretty sure some were ex-cons or former junkies. The ones at both RTC and NETC in Great Lakes worked for the Goodwill Organization who, judging by the chow, were probably the lowest bidders by a long shot.

[Lynn2]

"A post previously manned by a PFC in the Marine Corps is now manned by a petty officer second class in the Navy. I'm fairly certain that a PO2 earns more than a PFC and the cost of his training was greater."

Without a link to support this or explain this I have to assume this is mombo-jumbo that you pulled out of your magic hat.

Sort of like you "knowing" that a contractor cook costs the american tax payers a lot more than a USMC cook. Again without supporting data it looks alot like made up crap.

[Lynn2]

"I really don't think civilian cooks get a whole lot of training to do the jobs they do in Marine Corps chow..."

These civilian/contractor cooks are there because of a govt issued contract.

That contract spells out what skill sets the cooks on that contract must have. What training they must have before they can be placed on the contract.

They are as well trained and ready for the job as the contract specs have been written.

I use to write govt contracts (from the point of a project officer not a contracts officer) and we made sure the people bid on those contracts had the exact set of skills we needed.

That sort of thing plus cost plus a lot of other things was how we evaluated the various contract proposals.

[Intruder242]

When I went into the Marines, they were stable at about 175,000. Then Vietnam came and growth was amazing. I was in the first Marine A-6 squadron and the electronics system in the early versions of that plane were almost anightmare to keep operating. The only civilians I saw were no more than three engineers, two from Grumman and one from Litton. In that time, they also started watch our time on, if you can remember them, IBM cards. We learned a lot. We were spending around 40% of our time doing our job, keeping the birds flying. That changed quickly and moved up rapidly.
When I was in what I saw is that a LCpl had more responsiblity that an E-4/5 in the Navy. That is kind of a Marine thing and we did not man units the same. Also, as some of you may remember, at the end of 'Nam, the Marine Corp was going down the tube. That was fixed in the late 70', early 80's. We had some weak leaders then, the ones with stars on their uniforms.
Wtih technology, we should be able to reduce costs significantly. I cannot not relate to personell down sizing and I would bet that most units are close to being effeciently manned. As example, I know that F/A-18D squadrons have much fewer maintenance people than the A-6. The F/A-18 is significantly cheaper to buy (when they were bought) and maintain. One squadron has been shut down as their planes are out of time. The two seater F/A-18D's will be the first ones to get the F-35B, but when is really up in the air. The F-35 will replace almost all of the Marines tactical planes, perhaps all. I do not think they would delay this, but perhaps may have fewer squadrons.
The Marines have been through this before and will survive as they always have.
Intruder Marine.

[Beltayn]

At least in the chow hall, civilian contractors are MUCH more expensive and inefficient than USMC personnel doing the same jobs.

Lynn, your entire argument (and you aren't the first to make it) is short-sighted and naive. It is based on the concept that all the pipeline training a basic Marine goes through somehow adds up to make them less cost-effective.

It neglects several things;

-You are doing a one-year verses one-year comparison, but lumping the entire training pipeline on the Marine side of the scale. It would only be fair if you do a 4-year comparison, because the training a Marine receives last them their entire enlistment. And the longer a Marine serves, the less relevant their initial training costs are.
-Civilian contractors are just that, civilians. They are only motivated by getting through the day, and doing just enough to avoid getting fired. There is very little you can do to even get them to do a basically thorough job that any PFC with good NCO direction can accomplish.
-Civilians rate a massive amount of entitlements. Not just things like medical and dental insurance, vacation days, the ability to randomly call out sick and screw over a Marine watch, the ability to just not show up to work several times before real punitive action, but mostly the fact that they simply do not have anything holding them accountable other than the desire to not lose their job.
-A civilian contractor working in the chow hall does not care about mission accomplishment. If their shift is over, they leave. If some vital equipment goes down, it doesn't have anything to do with them. If a plane full of grunts about to deploy breaks on the runway and we suddenly have 500 hungry Marines in line, they are on break, and don't give a damn, because you CONTRACTUALLY can't take their break away from them.
-The cooks who ARE Marines are forced to pick up all the inherent slack where the civilian contractors drop the ball on these things, massively increasing the work-load on the individual Marine over what it should be with a full Marine crew working a Mess Hall. The civilians rate what they rate, and won't do a damn thing more than they have to, whereas it is OUR responsibility to get the job done whatever that takes. Those two objectives inherently screw over the Marines. Marines take care of fellow Marines and work together. Civilians are there to leech off the Marine Corps, and are barely even accountable to it, only to the letter of the contract.
-Chow Hall civilians are paid a LOT more than people think. Almost every civilian who I work with earns $20-25/hour or more, extra if they work nights, extra if they work weekends, extra if they work holidays, extra if they work early morning. For doing a job a Private with good NCOs could do three times better.
-Civilians have no concept of what "clean" means in Marine Corps standards, and The Contract does not elaborate. What this effectively means is that everything they are responsible for, we have to do again, the right way, every day. And they get paid for it.

And, most importantly...
-The biggest strength of the Marine Corps is it's cross-trained versatility. Cooks know how to operate ECP vehicle check points, or man convoys. We can stand post, or rapidly be called upon to respond to threats to a base or FOB as part of a QRF. Cooks cross-train more than any other MOS, and regularly fulfill the duties of Supply, MIMMS clerks, Admin, Motor T, Bulk Fuel, and countless other MOSs in a field environment, in addition to our own responsibilities. My unit, which is wing and about as POG as you can get, recently did a massive field op where we set up an entire FOB with everything necessary for it's operation, and then cooked chow for a bunch of brass. At the end of the inspection, a SSGT called over everyone for a big Food Service picture and the Major standing next to him stopped, absolutely astonished to discover that every single Marine in the entire operation was a cook, to include the Marines posting security with M240s and cammi paint.


See, Lynn, it is possible (depending on how you choose arbitrarily to tally the math) that you could create some matrix showing that the cost of one Food Service Marine is more than that of one civilian contractor. Fine and dandy.
But you are missing one very important fact:
One Marine is worth FIVE civilians, when it comes to accomplishing the mission.

Tally that in your budget.

Semper Fidelis.

[Quinbo]

"A post previously manned by a PFC in the Marine Corps is now manned by a petty officer second class in the Navy. I'm fairly certain that a PO2 earns more than a PFC and the cost of his training was greater."

Without a link to support this or explain this I have to assume this is mombo-jumbo that you pulled out of your magic hat.

Sort of like you "knowing" that a contractor cook costs the american tax payers a lot more than a USMC cook. Again without supporting data it looks alot like made up crap.

Not mumbo jumbo magic .... see resume.
While I was on barracks duty our base was turned over to the Navy. My post as corporal of the guard was turned over to a CPO. I trained him. Yes it is a personal annecdote but real and requires no internet google links to support.

Fairly certain a chief makes more than a Corporal and yet he would be performing the same job. Are ya picking up what I'm laying down?

[Big Jim]

Hey Bulk, my brother....we ALL know from experience Marines have been doing alot more with alot less than all the other branches....and even accomplishing ANY task and mission set before us with next to nothing. Anyone who has been in or around the Corps should know that.....and Lynn should know that too...its just sad that he believes what he does and thinks more cutbacks should happen.

But should we expect any less from someone who isn't a Marine? We have proven that we don't need the creature comforts of a soft civilian life like the Navy or Air Force has to make us better Marines or to help us accomplish any mission any better than we already do. We already know we are the toughest there is and can do anything because we've done it.