Recently in an article titled, Old Soldiers, I discussed the concern that we have too few people in our military in order to honor our national interests and commitments around the world. I suggested that the US ought to consider a system where those normally considered too old for military service could qualify for service in certain specialty areas. As a result of the article, I received some comments from a few ex-soldiers who convinced me that there's a better way to address this problem...
John of Arrgghhh! provided many comments that were very helpful and are excerpted below.
In regard to bringing in older people to serve in the military:
The services already have this ability for the officer corps, and infrequently use it for medical professionals who come in on contracts, vice standard commissions and warrants. They are called direct appointments.
He points to some real problems with recalling retired soldiers:
You'd think they'd want to recall the retirees - except by definition, the retirees have more rank, and are actually harder to fit into the structure (and cost more). In that regard your idea has merit. Again, among the officer and warrant corps, they have the ability to recall people back at a lesser grade - but you can start to see some issues with that. Recall me to active duty as a Captain, for example, that takes away my VA disability, and I lose my civilian job - all of a sudden I'm taking just over a two-thirds hit in pay. Tough to get me to volunteer for that! If they need me bad enough that they're willing to do it involuntarily, I'll go - but I don't think I'd volunteer under those circumstances. And, as you point out - the need is really in the junior ranks.
In reply to his comments, I pointed out:
...If I have civilian training and/or experience that would benefit the military, let's say in civil affairs or health care and the military needs more people in those areas, then why shouldn't they find a way to get me in there where I can be of use.
As an individual, the barriers would have to do with being unable to support the family with low military pay and being unable to leave a civilian career. By instituting a program legislatively that would allow a temporarily leave from their job for a period of say two years and by finding a way to keep the pay at a reasonable level, the military would be able to bring mostly-trained, experienced people into service within a relatively short time frame.
Then John really deflated my whole proposition with the following:
The way we are actually doing this kind of thing now - as long as it doesn't involve direct combat, is with contractors, i.e., guys like me, and to a lesser extent, the civilian workforce.
And there's going to be more contracting going on, as spaces are converted to MP, infantry, and CA stuff. Where I work the workload has increased, no increase in personnel authorizations has been forthcoming - so they are filling the spaces with contractors, pretty much exactly what you are suggesting, without getting into the legal issues of Title 10, Title 18, and Title 35 statuses (legal status/governmental authority). And if the need goes away three months from now, they can cancel the contract and my company will find something else for me to do.
I hate to admit it, but he's right. The answer that's being used more frequently now is contracting with companies called Private Military Corporations (PMCs) to provide many of the functions that can be outsourced.
The first time I remember hearing about this kind of outsourcing is when a PMC was contracted to provide protection for the Afghanistan Prime Minister, Hamid Karzai. There's a story here about one of the men on that detail.
It's difficult to find information on the PMC's that isn't ideologically based. It seems that this issue really rankles a lot of people on the left. They've written many articles condemning PMC's due to some very real but, in my opinion, exaggerated concerns.
One article I found, gives some information on the increasing frequency of PMC's as well as some of the concerns:
According to ICIJ, since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts valued at more than $300 billion with 12 of the 24 U.S.-based PMCs. More than 2,700 of those contracts were held by just two companies: Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer, Halliburton Corporation, and Virginia-based management and technology consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. The ICIJ report could not determine what percentage of these contracts was for training, security or logistical services because of the breadth of the services offered by the larger companies and the paucity of information provided by the Pentagon.
Other unresolved issues include the specific obligations of private contractors in times of combat. Experts agree that private contractors are not obligated to take orders or to follow military codes of conduct, since a contractor is bound by contract, not by oath. One suggested solution is to have contractors sign pledges to stay in the battlefield. But according to a legal opinion cited in an Army study, such agreements cannot be enforced, since it would constitute involuntary servitude. Nor are contractors subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Equally ambiguous is the question of who protects contractors in combat and who exactly is in charge of them. According to a November 2, 2002 U.S. News and World Report article, the Army has ordered an about face in the use of battlefield contractors. The article also reported that a series of exercises run by the Joint Staff showed that contractors make the military more visible to its enemies, require more troops for force protection, and require backup plans if contractors default. [Source]
Nearly all of the men and women employed by these companies are former soldiers or marines. Most of them were formerly in Special Operations. (Delta Force, Green Berets, etc.) They undergo additional training and then are put into operation around the world. They work for companies like Dyncorp, Kellogg, Brown & Root, Military Professional Resources (MPRI), and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The US isn't the only country to do this. The UK caused some controversy when they hired Sandline International for some operations in Papua New Guinea.
While there seems to be many concerns about the practice of hiring PMC's, it seems to me to be a good solution to some of the problems caused by the shortage of soldiers. The public is not about ready to re-initiate the draft. If we had a catastrophic terrorist attack there might be a sufficient outcry to mobilize large numbers of Americans for military service. However, in the meantime, these companies seem to offer the flexibility and the capability to handle the missions for which they've been contracted.
Eventually, I assume, someone for one of these PMC's will do something collosally stupid and invigorate negative press coverage of this practice. Depending on who is in the White House, something like that could be the end of PMC's. In that case, as a country we'll have to make some decisions: Do we want to be the lone Superpower with worldwide security commitments? Are we going to increase funding for our military? In the meantime, these private soldiers will be serving their country - but in a different way.
Special thanks goes to John at Arrgghh!. Now, If I could only get his response (and those of his comrades) on this post I'd be really happy.
Looking for a job?
Kellogg, Brown & Root Government Operations Jobs
Dyncorp Careers
MPRI Job Listings
The following articles provide information critical of Private Military Corporations:
The Center for Public Integrity
Privatizing War: How affairs of state are outsourced to corporations beyond public control