| Airbornelawyer |
07-21-2004 12:46 |
I watched on CSPAN last night a rebroadcast of the hearings where CSM Hall, Chief Breining and the others testified. Some fluff, some interesting commentary, an attempt by the Democratic congresswoman who represents Coronado to score political points.
One thing I recall. CSM Hall noted that in both physical fitness standards and language standards, one problem is that the public education system is no longer producing the same caliber of recruit, so more has to be done at the beginning of the pipeline. Foreign languages and PE are pretty much electives in too many high schools.
On the other end, he noted that some of the bad things you hear about pay, family separation and the like are coming from retention surveys of people getting out, so they may be an unrepresentative sample.
The AFSOC Chief Master Sergeant did note that for his people, one big complaint wasn't the high optempo, but a lack of optempo at times which led to AFSOC assets being allocated to non-AFSOC missions (e.g., MC-130s shuttling supplies between Kuwait and Baghdad). Chief Breining echoed that, saying a problem in the SEAL community was not enough missions, not too many.
On PMCs, they all noted that market forces drive pay, and stated that the SOF community has good relations with the PMCs, who fill a role that otherwise SOCOM might have to task assets to. They seemed to be going out of their way not to give the Democratic members ammunition to demonize PMCs.
One of the committee members, Tom Kline, is a retired Marine colonel who once carried the "football", so it was nice to hear a Congressman who spoke the language of soldiers rather than politicians (even if he was - gasp! - an officer).
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