Military Spending

Get Serious, Lockheed

Over the last few months, the aerospace industry has become a thespian, staging a drama of fear about the impact of a sequester on defense. Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens warned his employees that as many at 10,000 Lockheed jobs

Airman Dilbert

The Air Force is seeking professional help in “conflict coaching.” Apparently Air University down at Maxwell Air Force Base isn’t up to the task. That’s where airmen learn air superiority (magna cum laude) and air dominance (summa cum laude).

But it seems the “conflict coaching” the service seeks has nothing to do with …

Blast Effects

War is action v. reaction. The insurgents got the upper hand in Iraq with their improvised explosive devices. We countered with $40 billion worth of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. That worked for a while.

But the advantage is shrinking. Six U.S. troops, all inside a single MRAP, died Sunday in Afghanistan in the blast of a …

Courage Services, Inv. (as in, Invisible)

The outsourcing of what used to be thought of as vital governmental functions continues. Public Intelligence posted this last week on its website. It’s basically a 2009 intelligence report done for the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity by an outfit calling itself Courage Services, Inc. Its nifty corporate logo appears on the …

Building Bridges in Afghanistan

Major James Palmer liked to think of himself as a bridge builder when he was in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011…most likely because, as an Army engineer, he is a bridge builder. Anyone who has had to live without a bridge in his …

Probably Not Vanilla Wafers

From Monday’s contract announcements:

The Boeing Co., Huntington Beach, Calif., is being awarded a $36,197,205 firm-fixed-price, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to produce 12 modified wafers for the Minuteman III missile system. The location of the performance is Orange County, Md. Work is to be completed by Aug. 31, 2015.

Payday, for Officers

We posted the enlisted-vs.-civilian pay chart last Friday. One reader noted that doesn’t include officers. So here’s a chart from the same Pentagon report comparing U.S. military officers’ pay to that earned by their civilian counterparts with similar levels of education. The 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation …

Payday

OK – Battleland admits it. The Quadrennial Reviews of Military Compensation make for tough, dry reading, but we like them, anyway. Kind of like GAO reports, but without the violence and sex. The Pentagon issued its 11th edition Thursday. Once again, it makes clear our troops are paid fairly for their sacrifices:

Military compensation

Semper Buy

The Marines are spending $10 million on a squad battle course down at Camp Lejeune. When you read Thursday’s contract announcement, it becomes clear pretty quickly that a squad battle course isn’t simply a battlefield …

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