"Harry Krause" wrote in message
. ..
On 11/21/2006 8:30 AM, Eisboch wrote:
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
. ..
I appreciate the skill. It's certainly nothing I could do. But I don't
understand why soldiers are engaged in those kinds of activities when we
are short of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Good grief Harry. We have about 140,000 military personnel in Iraq out
of over 2 million total in all the armed forces.

Sailors are not "soldiers", are not trained as soldiers (other than very
basic weapon skills) and are normally not part of a ground based, armed,
fighting force. There are some exceptions, but in general it's a fact.
About a year ago the Navy sought regular service volunteers to attend
some advanced training in weapons and other specific skills to serve as
part of the military capability in Iraq. They got more volunteers than
they needed.

Eisboch


I don't mean those sailors specifically. I mean, members of the armed
forces. But if sailors are not soldiers, then why do they have a
small-arms drill team.

Tradition. Every branch of the service has one.


You raise an interesting point. If we have 2 million in uniform, why is
the military rotating the same troops and guard units back to Iraq over
and over? Why do we have 2 million in the military? If a majority of them
are not "fighting" soldiers, sailors, marines and airforce, maybe most of
those non-fighting billets should be handled by civilians.

I didn't say they were not "fighting" members of the military. I said that
the Navy is not typically trained for ground force fighting like the Army or
Marines. But, they manage and maintain a major defense capability of the
US.

It takes about 4500-5000 Navy personnel to man a single aircraft carrier.
Smaller ships have crews of a couple of hundred to over a thousand. The
Navy also has air squadrons, pilots, maintentence staff, etc. plus numerous
shore based facilities for communications and other purposes. You couldn't
possibly train civilians to handle those tasks in any practical sense.
Most would quit after a week.

Eisboch