We’re  gonna see a lot of news from this office in the next few weeks. 
 

 

Ahhh....Panzer Kaserne!  I do miss it!

 

4 minutes ago, Sim said:

 

This decision has sparked mass protests* from military families. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-protest-dei-transgender-germany-military-rcna191636

 

* “about 2 dozen people”

“No bureaucracy” in the Army?? Lolol, that’s actually very funny.

I for one can’t wait for Blues Monday, quarterly open ranks inspections, and all the associated navel gazing. It makes me much more lethal downrange!

Thanks CSAF 23 and SD 29, I’ll have another! BOHICA.

If we actually reform acquisitions and improve readiness, I am all for it. Best of luck, seriously, happy to be wrong but everything I’ve seen so far is admin BS.

22 hours ago, FUSEPLUG said:

He looks like a gay Darth Vader.

“No bureaucracy” in the Army?? Lolol, that’s actually very funny.
I for one can’t wait for Blues Monday, quarterly open ranks inspections, and all the associated navel gazing. It makes me much more lethal downrange!
Thanks CSAF 23 and SD 29, I’ll have another! BOHICA.
If we actually reform acquisitions and improve readiness, I am all for it. Best of luck, seriously, happy to be wrong but everything I’ve seen so far is admin BS.

Have the other branches had similar ORIs mandated? I have a feeling this is a brilliant idea from our CSAF and not mandated by SecDef.


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13 minutes ago, CaptainMorgan said:

Have the other branches had similar ORIs mandated? I have a feeling this is a brilliant idea from our CSAF and not mandated by SecDef.


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I think it’s just Air Force. I blame 23, not 29 for this one if that makes sense.

Edited February 12, 2025Feb 12 by nsplayr

2 hours ago, CaptainMorgan said:

Have the other branches had similar ORIs mandated? I have a feeling this is a brilliant idea from our CSAF and not mandated by SecDef.


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The thing is that some of these standards changes are situation normal in the other branches. The AF has been insulated from the usual tomfoolery of morning PT formations, uniform inspections, restrictions on cold weather gear wear, etc. for example.

What we turn a blind eye to would have a PVT at the front leaning rest after pissing off some E-5 SGT for wearing the fleece cap outside of the "cold season."

Edited February 12, 2025Feb 12 by Flev
Grammar

The thing is that some of these standards changes situation normal in the other branches. The AF has been insulated from the usual tomfoolery of morning PT formations, uniform inspections, restrictions on cold weather gear wear, etc. for example.
What we turn a blind eye to would have a PVT at the front leaning rest after pissing off some E-5 SGT for wearing the fleece cap outside of the "cold season."

As it should be. all that Army shit.

On 2/12/2025 at 9:23 AM, Biff_T said:

He looks like a gay Darth Vader.

What you were looking for was Darth Gayer

Politicians and pundits having been calling for acquisition reform for decades. Having worked in that world I've seen only marginal changes, until yesterday.

Hegeseth dropped a bomb on the system and wants to end the 8(a) contract system. If this happens it will shake up a lot of things in the "business." There is a simplified definition of 8(a) contracts below which basically states these are set aside contract for supposedly small disadvantaged businesses and tribes. What started as an effort to help groups like Indian tribes turned into a yet another way for people to make money doing nothing. Most of these contracts were awarded to companies in name only, owned by a wife with enough native American blood to qualify, a huge fee was taken then they subcontract it to another company or consulting firm. I dealt with several range management contracts that were exactly like this.

I am not in favor of everything he has done but this is a good step towards reform and getting the most of the taxpayers dollars spent on defense. His full statement is below.

"When President Trump appointed me as your Secretary of War, I made you a series of promises. I promised that every single one of your taxpayer dollars would go toward one thing and one thing only: building the most lethal fighting force on the planet. And I promised we would gut the corruptive, unconstitutional, non-merit-based DEI programs that have weakened our military and distracted us from our primary mission. And I promised we would hunt down the waste, the fraud, and the abuse that has run rampant in this department for decades, and to instead redirect that money to President Trump's America First priorities.

Well, today we are once again taking action on these promises. We’re actually taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government, a program few people outside of Washington have ever heard of, that I hadn’t heard of. It’s called the 8(a) program. Now, if you're like me, you're asking yourself what is an 8(a)? It’s a great question.

8(a) refers to the Small Business Administration’s program to assist "small disadvantaged businesses owned by a socially disadvantaged individual or tribe." Providing these small businesses with opportunities is a laudable goal. But over the decades, as it happens, the 8(a) program has morphed into swamp code words for DEI race-based contracting.

And here’s the worst part: in many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses, they don't even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top and then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm, commonly known as "Beltway Bandits." For decades, this program—8(a)—has been a breeding ground for fraud. And this administration is finally doing something about it.

The Department of Justice, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, recently exposed half a billion dollars in 8(a) fraud. Treasury, led by Secretary Bessent, found another quarter billion, and their investigation is just beginning. Treasury, Justice, and the Small Business Administration under Administrator Loeffler are all actively investigating their 8(a) contracts right now.

Now, in the Pentagon, $100 million sole-source contracts go out the door to these 8(a) firms almost every day. One hundred million dollar sole-source contracts go out our door to these 8(a) firms almost every day without any competition or opportunity for anyone else to bid. The Department of War is required by law to do almost a hundred billion dollars’ worth of contracts per year with small businesses, including 8(a) firms. Seems 8(a) is quite important. But we're not required to pay enormous brokerage fees only to have these firms pass those contracts along to giant consulting companies, and we won't. We're not doing this anymore.

So effective immediately, I’m ordering a line-by-line review of every small-business sole-source 8(a) contract that is over $20 million. And we’ll look at everything smaller than that too. The Department of War has the biggest chunk of 8(a) spending by far, ten times more than any other agency. So our cleanup, it’s going to be ten times tougher.

It’s a two-stage mission. First, if a contract doesn’t make us more lethal, it’s gone. We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don’t help us win wars, period, full stop. Second, we’re doing away with these pass-through schemes. We’ll make sure that every small business getting a contract is the one actually doing the work, and not just some shell company funneling your money to a giant consulting firm.

This approach is of course not meant to hurt small businesses, and that's not the point. America’s full of great, amazing small businesses. This is part of a larger effort to transform our acquisition ecosystem into one that makes sense for the threats we face in the 21st century. I gave a long speech about this back in November. Our goal is to spend your money to build our defense industrial base with businesses, large and small, that share our mission, not to line the pockets of Beltway fraudsters or to advance the agenda of DEI apologists. Only lethality, and we’re going to look at every single contract."