The money. I've always been about the money, ever since I was a wee lad. I think this was mostly driven by my father, who in response to my pleas for a baseball glove, a fishing pole, a football helmet - whatever it was - would unfailingly say, "Sure. You can have (x). Just find a way to earn the money and you can buy yourself whatever you want." The message: If you want it, go out and get it. Heard that message loud and clear dad, and in retrospect - it is greatly appreciated, although not so much at the time. So off I trundled, helping my brother with his paper route (I loved collecting every month and looking for the pre 1965 sliver coins), finding golf balls in the woods and water hazards on the local golf course, doctoring them up and selling them back to golfers, or buying Craigmont soda for 13 cents a can, putting them in a cooler and pushing a wheelbarrow up to the tee right before where the vending machine with sodas was. Sold them for 25 cents, a handsome profit of 12 cents, almost 50%, with no overhead. As I grew older, I worked as a busboy at Pals Pancake house in New Jersey and when I moved back to the Marshall Islands, I worked a variety of jobs, snack bar, lifeguard, and when I was back for summers and Christmas, I worked in heavy equipment, construction, whatever job I could cobble together. I also found and sold rare shells, fished and sold what I didn't/couldn't eat, pretty much anything that would bring a few shekels in. I was always on the hustle for the pennies to save so I could squander them on some pretty bauble later on.
There are soooo many things I could write about when it comes to money and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Corruption. Graft. The cost to get all of the equipment there. The cost to sustain it. The cost to get it out. Military pensions. VA costs. Contractor's profits and business models. Serious, long term injuries. Defense Base Act claims. And the absolutely incalculable cost of lives. Each topic really deserves coverage more in depth than I have the time to devote, but here's a morsel on pay earned by contractor's.
I'll admit it. When sequestration was looming and Afghanistan winding down, I smelled one of the last chances to earn and save some of the stupid money. And that's why I came back.
"In all countries engaged in war, experience has sooner or later pointed out that contracts with private men of substance and understanding are necessary for the subsistence, covering, clothing, and moving of any Army."
Robert Morris
Superintendent of Finance, 1781
The quote just goes to show you the contracting game has been going on a loooonnnnnggggg time. Any government can't do it all by themselves, so they contract out to companies to provide support services. Requests for proposals are put out, companies submit bids, are selected, and pile in to do whatever work is required to assist with the military mission. That's the very simple version. In some cases, the work done is quite mundane - think running a small town or city. The Logistical Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contracts really deal with the logistics of operating a base, the power generation, roads, sewer, water, housing. The carpenters, power plant operators, electricians and the like are earning 6 figure salaries. Other contracts maintain equipment/vehicles or do secret squirrel stuff. When you add up what you don't pay for while overseas, housing, utilities, food (in Afghanistan) and throw in the 95.1K tax exemption, well, you're talking about some serious coin. The tax exemption alone adds an effective 23K to your salary, if you assume a 25% tax rate. That's what you would have paid in taxes if you were back in the good 'ole U.S. of A. but don't pay overseas which allows you to save at a much higher rate. But most people do have responsibilities back in the States - spouses, houses, children, cars and other money drainers. These jobs allow them to take care of those bills and breathe easier because most of those folks wouldn't have been earning six figure salaries back in the U.S. Very far from it. I know of one young woman who was earning 26K/year doing administrative work somewhere back home. And in Afghanistan, with the 35% uplift for danger, 35% uplift for hardship and her bonus...90K+. So we are talking, at the very low end, a group of employees who are not the best and brightest (this is no dig at craftsmen, whose skills I respect and value highly, this is a dig at the fools who work over here) getting paid quite well. And that's at the low end. Although the freewheeling early days of Iraq and Afghanistan are over and salaries and profit margins are quite a bit tighter then they were in the gravy years, it can still be quite lucrative, particularly given the difficulty of a lower skilled person looking for jobs in the U.S. Some contractors pay a higher hourly rate but only give you the uplift on the first 40 hours, others pay a lower rate and uplift all wages. It works out to be pretty much the same. And there are quite a few higher paying positions as well.
As we draw down, and quite thankfully prepare to partially exit Afghanistan, the perks that soldiers and contractors overseas enjoyed are diminishing as well. There is a huge push to save money and be cost conscious. 'Bout time. They used to have at least 5 flavors of ice cream at the DFAC. They are now routinely down to 3. And surf and turf night? It used to be lobster. Every Friday. Do you know how many times I've had lobster in the 7 Friday's I've been here? Once. Breaded shrimp. Catfish. Crab legs. I don't think they should expect American Jedi war heroes (and the humble contractors who support them) to have to suck on a crab leg to get a tiny morsel of meat. What kind of surf is that? I'd be guessing the kind of surf that doesn't cost quite as much as lobster.
And where there are foolish people earning large sums of money, there will always be some entrepreneur nearby, willing and able to help separate those fools from their money. I stopped by a bazaar today just inside the base. Those ersatz mink blankets you see in developing nations everywhere? Well they sell them here as well. Mickey Mouse and Confederate Flag blankets for sale, right here in Afghanistan. If someone is foolish enough to buy that crap, someone else is smart enough to put it up for sale. Well done, well struck my capitalistic friends.
There are soooo many things I could write about when it comes to money and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Corruption. Graft. The cost to get all of the equipment there. The cost to sustain it. The cost to get it out. Military pensions. VA costs. Contractor's profits and business models. Serious, long term injuries. Defense Base Act claims. And the absolutely incalculable cost of lives. Each topic really deserves coverage more in depth than I have the time to devote, but here's a morsel on pay earned by contractor's.
I'll admit it. When sequestration was looming and Afghanistan winding down, I smelled one of the last chances to earn and save some of the stupid money. And that's why I came back.
"In all countries engaged in war, experience has sooner or later pointed out that contracts with private men of substance and understanding are necessary for the subsistence, covering, clothing, and moving of any Army."
Robert Morris
Superintendent of Finance, 1781
The quote just goes to show you the contracting game has been going on a loooonnnnnggggg time. Any government can't do it all by themselves, so they contract out to companies to provide support services. Requests for proposals are put out, companies submit bids, are selected, and pile in to do whatever work is required to assist with the military mission. That's the very simple version. In some cases, the work done is quite mundane - think running a small town or city. The Logistical Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contracts really deal with the logistics of operating a base, the power generation, roads, sewer, water, housing. The carpenters, power plant operators, electricians and the like are earning 6 figure salaries. Other contracts maintain equipment/vehicles or do secret squirrel stuff. When you add up what you don't pay for while overseas, housing, utilities, food (in Afghanistan) and throw in the 95.1K tax exemption, well, you're talking about some serious coin. The tax exemption alone adds an effective 23K to your salary, if you assume a 25% tax rate. That's what you would have paid in taxes if you were back in the good 'ole U.S. of A. but don't pay overseas which allows you to save at a much higher rate. But most people do have responsibilities back in the States - spouses, houses, children, cars and other money drainers. These jobs allow them to take care of those bills and breathe easier because most of those folks wouldn't have been earning six figure salaries back in the U.S. Very far from it. I know of one young woman who was earning 26K/year doing administrative work somewhere back home. And in Afghanistan, with the 35% uplift for danger, 35% uplift for hardship and her bonus...90K+. So we are talking, at the very low end, a group of employees who are not the best and brightest (this is no dig at craftsmen, whose skills I respect and value highly, this is a dig at the fools who work over here) getting paid quite well. And that's at the low end. Although the freewheeling early days of Iraq and Afghanistan are over and salaries and profit margins are quite a bit tighter then they were in the gravy years, it can still be quite lucrative, particularly given the difficulty of a lower skilled person looking for jobs in the U.S. Some contractors pay a higher hourly rate but only give you the uplift on the first 40 hours, others pay a lower rate and uplift all wages. It works out to be pretty much the same. And there are quite a few higher paying positions as well.
As we draw down, and quite thankfully prepare to partially exit Afghanistan, the perks that soldiers and contractors overseas enjoyed are diminishing as well. There is a huge push to save money and be cost conscious. 'Bout time. They used to have at least 5 flavors of ice cream at the DFAC. They are now routinely down to 3. And surf and turf night? It used to be lobster. Every Friday. Do you know how many times I've had lobster in the 7 Friday's I've been here? Once. Breaded shrimp. Catfish. Crab legs. I don't think they should expect American Jedi war heroes (and the humble contractors who support them) to have to suck on a crab leg to get a tiny morsel of meat. What kind of surf is that? I'd be guessing the kind of surf that doesn't cost quite as much as lobster.And where there are foolish people earning large sums of money, there will always be some entrepreneur nearby, willing and able to help separate those fools from their money. I stopped by a bazaar today just inside the base. Those ersatz mink blankets you see in developing nations everywhere? Well they sell them here as well. Mickey Mouse and Confederate Flag blankets for sale, right here in Afghanistan. If someone is foolish enough to buy that crap, someone else is smart enough to put it up for sale. Well done, well struck my capitalistic friends.
