Governor Holden's Armchair Generalcy

Just how much sniping can the war effort withstand before it is toppled? Today, Missouri Governor Bob Holden is carping about the use/misuse of a Missouri National Guard (MONG) Transportation Unit.

Apparently, these troops have been driving rigs for Kellogg Brown and Root, a civilian contractor that provides omnibus logistical support for the U.S. Military. KB&R has for this and the previous administration fed troops, done their laundry, hauled their supplies, shipped spare parts and handled fuel in any number of theaters of conflict. Holden objects, stating that MONG troops should not be doing work that the contractor should be doing.

MONG Adjutant General Dennis Shull adds that these troops have been trained to react to certain situations, and that riding with or driving rigs for KB&R places troops into situations they may not have trained for.

To a limited degree, I can see their point. If KB&R is being paid to haul supplies, it should not get free labor from a military unit and get to bill the government anyway, but I doubt seriously they would, or get away with it if they tried (I suspect that KB&R will be the most audited government contractor in all of history). I can also understand not wanting to put troops into situations for which they may not be fully trained.

However, just how inept does the governor thing MONG soldiers are? Part of being a troop is to innovate and improvise. No battle plane survives contact with the enemy, and if field commanders are restricted to just what a G.I has been trained for, then there will never be sufficient mission flexibility to meet a fluid theater.

Holden acknowledges that reality in this:

"I can understand the necessity to occasionally use units and soldiers to do other non-traditional kinds of missions to accommodate the short-term dictates of the combat zone; but I cannot understand, nor support, the use of soldiers to provide labor for a civilian contractor,"

The job of a soldier is to do what they are told by their commanders. If there is a shortage of capable truck drivers in the theater to schlep drinking water, food and spare parts, or guys with guns to protect the civilian drivers while these supplies wind their way to their comrades, Governor Holden is hardly in a position to second-guess the command structure there.

Furthermore, Democrat Governor Holden's decision to make this a public spat has cheapened the notion that his concern is genuine . While I might be inclined to presume genuine concern, it certainly reeks of partisan ankle-biting.

We are at war. Stuff has to get done, and warfighters can hardly ever follow their best-laid plans. SNAFU* and FUBAR* are shorthand for how things normally run under the best wartime conditions. Theater commanders don't need the additional burden of accommodating a state Governor's vision for the best use of troops. Our Governor should do to his job and leave these decisions to the Army.

Tim McNabb