I met my first “civilian contractor” in Croatia in 1997. That year, I was driving a PLS M-1075 between Croatia and Bosnia. On our return trips we would stop to get fuel. The guy that pumped the fuel was a civilian contractor. Odd that a civilian would be pumping our fuel, when each military service has personnel that are certified through State and Federal courses to do just that. The difference? A soldier fueling our vehicles would have cost the Government and taxpayers around $2,700 per month ( depending on years in service ). The contractor was being paid just a fuzz over $11,000 a month, with $70,000 of his years’ salary being tax free. That was in 1997.
This link provides information on the M1075 PLS : http://www.army.mil/factfiles/equipment/wheeled/pls.html
There are many civilian companies that provide “support” services to the military. A few that I can think of at the spur of the moment are: Brown and Root, Halliburton and Black Water ( who later changed their name to try and change their image after an unsightly incident in Iraq ).
Link for Brown and Root: http://www.kbr.com/
Link for Halliburton: Subsidy of Kellogg Brown and Root
* Apparently they are back….
With the amount of money that is funneled to these and several other “consulting firms”, small countries could be bought and hunger in America could be eradicated. If we recouped all the unnecessary funds, we wouldn’t have to shelve programs for the elderly or prescription plans for the poor. I hope more folks will help me lead the way to getting Government out of this particular “business”.
Have a great day!
Trevor M Dodge
