Best examples of the military wasting its members time?

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 09:38:33 -0400

Give example of the mosted wasted time in military career. Time is money. Or example of government acting stupid with taxpay money.

-If you can think of any, is there any examples of the system being ahead of the game, saving money or resources. I want to be fair to both sides of the discusssion.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 19 at 2014 9:45 AM

LTC Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 09:45:57 -0400

My favorite example so far is on my most recent mobilization, I spend two hours of my life doing the initial ACAP training, watching 90 min video, which was only 5% useful material for me. I'm fully employed on the civilian side, and intend to return to my job, I don't need help getting a job, and none of it pertained to me. Yet because it is congressionally mandated there are no waivers. The kicker is that I have to meet with a counsolor and go through another session at the end. As far as me a fully employed reservist is concerned, this is a waste of govt time and money. For a career military soldier, or others this may be appropriate training, but there should be a way to decline the training also.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 19 at 2014 2:46 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 14:46:51 -0400

Sir, I have seen it from several sides. We used to play arts and crafts with medical supplies in the ED, just to do something. We created baseballs out of coban. They just renovated a firehouse on post, including brand new appliances, only to put in a contract to demolish it and build new on the same spot, Getting all new appliances. The two construction projects are within 2 years of each other. We send Soldiers for medical appointments out of state, just so they can be seen by a military doc or partner provider. Airfare is about $1600 a trip. The cost to send them to a non-partner, usually only the difference of $200-500. Using contractors and civilians to plow snow, when we have EN Co that can operate the vehicles and do the job for free. I can go on.

The ACAP process is a waste of time and money. It is great for many of the junior enlisted, but should be easier for the command to exempt a person. Most professionals do not need ACAP resources. They already know how to find a job and plan for education, etc. I spent 10 years making it on my own before the Army; i'm fairly sure the guy will not teach me anything I don't know. One of my NCOs has dual bachelors and a masters and worked as a teacher prior to joining; he shouldn't need to do it either. From what I understand, your command can write a memo exempting you from it, but what commander really wants to do that?

The lack of understanding and competence of the IT staff that run the Army infrastructure is amazing. Our network and computers go down so frequently, it's a joke. The NEC/BDE just marked a number of computers as non-compliant. Instead of allowing the S6 to install the updates and then moving the computer back on the network, they force the S6 to put in a work order to remove the computer information on the server and re-image it. Current time to re-image a computer is about 3-4 days. The updates can all be pushed to the computers at night. Instead, they push them in the middle of the workday and force restart upon restart on us.

I certainly feel your frustration.

Response by CW2 Joseph Evans made Apr 19 at 2014 3:00 PM

CW2 Joseph Evans — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 15:00:31 -0400

The Afghan and Iraq occupations...

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 22 at 2014 5:46 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:46:21 -0400

anything that gets bought by the government is a waste of money, they overpay for everything and anything

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 22 at 2014 6:25 PM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 18:25:54 -0400

Sir I have read the responses here and just want to say this: While a lot of the services put in place (like ACAP) may not help you or many but it does help some Soldiers. We have to get out of the mindset of "this wastes MY time" and start being happy that the Soldiers that truly don't have a clue are getting some potentially helpful info. Just like with all the safety training we do, it is evident to anybody that it does not stop ALL accidents, but if it does save one life then I say it's worth it.

We have all these homeless vets who can't find a job and probably either don't know how to properly market themselves or are just lazy. Those that don't know how to market themselves properly, probably heard from so many senior leaders how "useless" ACAP is and that is just a "check the block" to seperate from the military, and probably didn't pay attention to anything that was briefed.

Now you want to talk about a waste of time???? My whole BNCOC class in 2006 (13 of us) were all recently seasoned combat veterans. Our SGLs that instructed the "FTX" portion of the course were all slick sleeved minus one, who had been to desert storm. We spent an entire day on them teaching us how to stack on a house, and how to patrol on foot. Obviously we all did what they said as it was a graded portion and required for graduation, but they had no real clue about what they were teaching us.

Again I just want to say that as leaders, we should be pleased that our Soldiers are getting good info upon seperation from the military to set themselves up for success in the civilian world. If they choose to use it properly is totally up to them.

Response by CPT Zachary Brooks made Apr 22 at 2014 6:40 PM

CPT Zachary Brooks — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 18:40:58 -0400

Congress

Response by SFC William Swartz Jr made Apr 22 at 2014 7:04 PM

SFC William Swartz Jr — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:04:28 -0400

IMHO, the biggest waste of Big Army's time/money was the BRAC move that brought the Armor School from Ft. Knox to Ft. Benning....Ft. Knox had all the ranges and training areas needed for the maneuver training that is conducted during A-BOLC, 19K ALC & SLC, not to mention the other courses taught by both 316th CAV and 194th AR BDEs. Benning did not and still does not have adequate training areas "assigned" to 316th for it's maneuver training due to environmental off-limits areas and the nature of the Good Hope Maneuver Training Area. Nice building for the classroom portions and also digital training environments, but the land used is a complete waste of time and money.

Response by SSG (ret) William Martin made Apr 22 at 2014 10:14 PM

SSG (ret) William Martin — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 22:14:05 -0400

I think paying $30k for a hammer and $20k for a toilet lid in the 80s are pretty big waste to me.

Response by SPC Charles Brown made Apr 22 at 2014 11:07 PM

SPC Charles Brown — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 23:07:47 -0400

To me the biggest waste of time and money is sending our troops to foreign countries that should by rights be able to handle their own internal affairs. This would save not only the military, but our federal government money. We must spend millions of dollars a day flying our service members back and forth, the avgas must be really expensive. Bring all our men and women home, reopen the closed bases and provide jobs for those who otherwise would not be able to get one. Saves money, creates jobs, and bolster the self image of the unemployed in the areas where these closed bases are located. Any complaints?

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 23 at 2014 5:24 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:24:19 -0400

As a District Stability Framework instructor working with USAID in Kabul, we were trying to teach them how to better manage their development projects, as to not waste money on things that were not directly related to issues causing instability. Then the Secretary of State mandates that 20% of USAID's development projects must be related to women's rights issues. In not a single case study could we find a district in Afghanistan where a source of instability was related to women's rights. Our calculations were somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars spent trying to fix something that wasn't desabilizing the country in the first place. In fact, intervention in this area simply caused additional problems, that required more money, etc, etc, etc....

Response by SSgt Gregory Guina made Apr 23 at 2014 6:02 PM

SSgt Gregory Guina — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:02:23 -0400

The biggest waste of funds that I see is the end of year funds. There is so much moneyt left that was budgeted for us but we didn't spend it so go buy something now or else we will not get the same amount next year. This drives me crazy if a corporation budgets an amount of money but doesn't spend it all for whatever reason that is a good thing and it stays in the coffers. However if the government makes a budget we have to spend it all or risk not getting enough next year. There should be a rewward for not spnding all the money.

Response by SGT James Elphick made Apr 23 at 2014 7:58 PM

SGT James Elphick — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:58:49 -0400

Paying contractors to do the jobs of soldiers at double or triple the pay rate. Also I saw a lot of unit level procurement that was absolute crap and should have never been bought. Everything from thermal sights that sat around to assault packs that fell apart on the first mission.

Response by SGT John Phillips made Apr 23 at 2014 7:59 PM

SGT John Phillips — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:59:45 -0400

The F-35, there is a big waste of money. Common sense has to kick in at some point. 2 Billion this year alone allotted for a new engine design. This aircraft is billions of dollars over budget, and not even close to ready. I understand staying on the cutting edge, but there has to be a cut off. The projected over-all cost of this thing is going to be around 2 or 3 trillion dollars if memory serves correctly. It's just an insane amount of money, that could be better used somewhere else, or not at all.

Response by Col Private RallyPoint Member made May 26 at 2014 8:44 PM

Col Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 26 May 2014 20:44:32 -0400

I think one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money is when the military "allocates" billions of dollars into the BRAC demolition of "outdated" buildings just to turn around and build a brand new facility that meets the same purpose. At the same time our economy is in the toilet and the military is cutting the careers of thousands of active duty military folks.

Response by SSG (ret) William Martin made Oct 25 at 2014 5:38 PM

SSG (ret) William Martin — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 17:38:49 -0400

I have seen units cleaning out their excess property or other things such as MREs, and some how sealed boxes end up in the dumpster. To me, that is a waste of tax payer funds.

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made Oct 25 at 2014 7:34 PM

MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 19:34:28 -0400

Army combat uniforms
Marine Corps combat uniforms
Navy combat uniforms
Air Force combat uniforms
Trying to make the TA-50 match all the combat uniforms
Iraq
Afghanistan
ISIS
Turkey
Syria
NATO
...