What is the Biggest Problem with the Department of Defense (DOD)?

What is the Biggest Problem with the Department of Defense DOD is a question that people have pondered for decades. If you step back and take a close look, the answer will smack you in the face. Before we get started, I retired from the military after 27 years of service and worked as a civilian employee for the DOD until I retired, so what I say is from first-hand knowledge.

I have seen, questioned, and been shocked at the answers and policies, as well as the nepotism. I watched as we tested a vehicle to protect our troops and the contract get awarded to the company because of political affiliations instead of merit which ended us with many US military deaths; but that senator was reelected. The Military should be the ONLY one picking the equipment they need, not some bureaucrat interested only in reelection. If you really want to fix this problem, the Defense budget should be set on a percentage of our GDP. Under Democrats, it is usually 17%, Republicans 23%, so let us make it permanently 20%, which would also help us with all the Pork Spending from both sides. If this is not possible, the Defense Budget Bill should be voted on by itself, with no other bills attached. Then add, if the DOD saves money, it will not lose money the next year.

One of the Biggest Problem is the amount of non-Military background people who are in charge of important parts of the Military. When you talk about DOD personnel, they are three groups, Military personnel (self-explained) DOD permanent civilian employees (full time permanent hires), DOD temp/term employees (temp usually a DOD perm in a short term job, Term not a perm and can be let lose at any time), and DOD contract personnel (personnel or company contracted to fulfill a military contract.) Of the DOD permanent employees, too many bosses who have never been in the Military are in charge and have not a clue. As hard as I looked, I could not find the ratio of prior service people who are now DOD civilians, where I was, it is probably 25%, which is one area of the problem. They do know the Military and do not have the integrity, for the most part, drilled into the heads of the Military.

How can the DOD hire people to define the battlefield, the type of equipment needed on the battlefield, and how to achieve the battlefield objective if they have never been in a battlefield situation, do not understand the military thought pattern, and has never employed personnel, equipment, or tactics to fight a battle? They have had no skin in the fight! You cannot, the only thing that ends up happening is the Military personnel end up dead. This is one of the biggest problems in our Department of Defense. You can have academics coming up with possible theories at a collage, it is all right, it is theological, but when these academics making decisions about battlefield procedures who have ZERO experience, we the Military people pay the price with our lives. This is compounded by these same academics not listening to the Military leaders who have devoted their whole life to develop these tactics for effectiveness and least risk, the number of the dead Military tells the story.

There were no politician, during the writing of the US Constitution, who would interfere with Military operations. The politicians would just tell the generals their mission and get out of the way. This ended with LBJ; and the Liberal Democrats used the Rules of Engagement (ROE), which are the rules the Military must follow set forth by the president. In Vietnam, the ROE were used as a social justice tool during the Vietnam War causing mass Military casualties. Even after their arrogance had caused thousands of US Military deaths, these politicians did not stop; they just doubled down with their interference in Military missions racking up 58,318 American Casualties. These bureaucrats directed what the military could, and could not bomb, even though the off limit targets were the best legitimate targets to end the Vietnam War. Vietnam was the first time ROE were used to cripple the Military’s ability to fight, using FOBs (forward operating bases) instead of lines, and restraining the Military’s ability to wage war, but it would not be the last.

The first Gulf War went off like a snap; we defeated the third strongest Military in the world in 100 hours with minimal casualties due to the Military not being compromised by the ROE. Unfortunately, the second Gulf War we forgot, we went back to FOBs instead of lines, but the Military was only restrained by their 8 years of gutting from the previous administration. There were WMDs, many of us seen them but were ordered to stay quit because they were traced back to Kofi Annan’s son, Kofi Annan was the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Politics interfered with the truth again. The ROE did protected the Military, which was until President Obama, who in known to loath the Military, won the election. From 2001 to end of 2007, there were 1,049 US Military killed in Afghanistan, which averages to 131 troops killed under President Bush per year. From 2009 to the end, 2016 there were 3,776 US Military killed in Afghanistan, which averages to 347 troops killed under President Obama per year. This is a 265% increase, this, like the Vietnam War, was directly caused by President Obama’s ROE compounded by the MASSIVE cuts done to the Military by the Obama administration, and the administration forcing the Military to buy inferior equipment. President Obama would not listen to any of the Military leaders because he, as most Liberals, is a narcissistic academic who has never been in the Military and thought he knew more than the generals with hundreds of years combined knowledge. This ended up with over 1,727 of my sisters and brothers in arms, not coming home to their families. If you through the icing on the cake, President has averaged a little over 1 a month, but his ROE told the Military, do what you have to. These are not Democrats or Republicans; these are not conservatives or Liberals. These Americans died because of the arrogance of Liberal civilian placed over the Military who have had no skin in the fight.

Another major problem is that we have too many civilian employees in the DOD who have never had skin in the game. They do not have the mindset, discipline, or integrity most Military display daily. I watched a Military retiree, who was a supervisor, get busted and suspended (rightfully so) for trying to hire someone illegally by the Director and Executive Director. Then I watched the Director and Executive Director, neither have served in the Military, who busted him, illegally hire the most unqualified person, over many highly qualified people, into the leaving directors spot who was retiring. Before you ask, no I was not running for this position. This person with ZERO experience at that level or even the next level down, who also had ZERO Military experience was picked for that exact reason. The way they promoted this person directly violated the regulations and US Labor Laws. This hypocrisy and illegalities I watch daily, among the non-mil civilians working in the DOD and it is mind blowing. If you bring it up or challenge it, they will retaliate against and black list you. You cannot stop these wrongs because they are the ones in charge. This needs to be fixed, I’m not saying every person needs to be Prior Military but the ones making the major decisions should have at least had skin in the game. I wonder how many of these civilians, if vetted properly today, would have illegal payments from DOD contractors in their pockets. I wonder the same about our politicians, both Democrat and Republican.

Another major problem we have is with the way the military is required to go through certain civilian companies with ZERO ability to do a price challenge. For example, we had a 1-cylinder diesel engine on a piece of equipment, which broke. None was in the supply system so we went local purchase, which is legal but equipment must be identical to the Military required item. Through the supply system, this engine was $1,800 yet I purchased it for just under $600. I put in a price challenge, it was denied because it went through a disability company. When I followed the tracking of the money and equipment, the equipment came directly from where I bought it, only the paperwork went through the disability company. We were paying them $1,200 to process paperwork that took 10 minutes, and on average, the military bought roughly 5,000 of these engines a year. DOD was overpaying this company by $6 million dollars a year; I wonder which politician was involved here. Remember, this is just one company and we deal though out the Military with hundreds of thousands of companies.

There was a project we were working, one part classified, one part sensitive, and we were going to pay the contractor $1.6 million. I told the person in charge, I could do it and save some money, he gave me 2/3rds of the project, paying the contractor $600,000 for the other 1/3rd. It took me by myself, two months to complete the 2/3rds of the project, saving $1 million dollars. My pay for those two moths was just a spec of the million. Ask yourself a question, “Why was the contractor charging so much?” I have done this many times which the contractors hate, but the same contractors keep offering me job.

Here is another. The Normal military jet fuel is JP-8; it costs $3.73 a gallon. The Obama administration mandated the Military use BIO fuel; it costs over $16 a gallon and damages fighter jet engines, so on top of the 429% fuel cost raise you have the cost to fix the jets. You ask why the DOD budget is so high; it is because of bad stewardship and decisions from civilians that compromised our National Security. This is singly the most costly problem we have at the DOD. Many of the DOD contract companies rip off the DOD (and all branches of government) at every chance and we are mandated, in many cases, to bend over and take it. We need to have a mandatory price challenge for anything the government buys, if it has the same Form, Fit, and Function and is cheaper, you must buy it. We also need to only by parts from the US, or our allies. We had bought cameras from china and found out they were transmitting information back to China, does that sound like a threat?  

I can go on for days and deeper in these areas but I would need to write a book. Please let me know what you thing.