I might have been late to work as a civilian at Fort Hood this morning, having a hard time driving in to Fort Hood because of smoke from all the burning flags obscuring the huge processions of cars from all the gay marriages here. Somehow I did make it in though but found the staff consumed by worries about Mississippi train tracks.
Well no, actually, what they are worried about at Fort Hood, as reflected in
this story in the local paper is whether or not the post will continue to operate normally and what affect releasing civilian workers will have on operations, including rail and shipments to Iraq.
"The contract is now on a month-to-month basis instead of by the fiscal year. The June delivery order to carry (my) service to the soldier has only money for the employee labor, no monies for supplies to buy materials needed for the soldiers."
According to Cody's memo, the Army has a third set of cuts due June 15 with the "release" of all temporary civilian employees who are funded through the Army's operations and maintenance account, including personnel working at Army depots, the memo states.
While the Senate dithers for days and possibly weeks about gay marriage and with flag burning in the que' for the next priority, services and operations are being cut across the armed forces. Some non-essential travel and conferences might be spared but as the services try to modernize and add security protections in light of the VA data debacle, trips like this (cancelled in a distributed message)might have been more important:
Due to severe OMA funding restrictions, it is necessary to cancel the 2006 Army Information Technology Conference originally scheduled for 6 - 8 June 2006 in Orlando. Please make sure that you cancel your hotel reservations immediately to ensure that the Army does not incur any additional costs. The Army Small Computer Program apologizes for this late notice... on future conferences.
This, as the workforce struggles with day to day logging on to comoputers and they implement one of the most sweeping security reforms at Hood ever.
As General Cody states, operations in support of the deployed units should continue unabated but there are a lot of ways that Soldiers and their families are affected that are not so evident. Combat Lifesaver Courses that run short of supplies may not offer as adequate a training course that years later will affect someone's survivability. Vehicle shortcuts taken by a contractor or one that slips through the cracks may fail months or years later when it's critical. A part not bought now can cost twice as much later and it is the Soldiers that will play catch-up to fix all this once the budget is sorted out.
This Congress has wrapped itself in the flag and pushed our troops out front time and again. Now, when it's time for them to do their job, they play politics, repeat the mistakes they accused others of, and put our men and women at risk.