I’ve read somewhere (Sorry, no cite) the the Army is sub-contracting it’s cooking duties to civilians. I remember KP (Kitchen Police) when I was in, and it was no walk in the park. 
It seems like the troops could use their time for better things. Like training or even time off.
Outsourcing has become common in the military.
There’s a lot of articles. Couldn’t find one specifically on Food Service. But this one mentions a lot of areas. A lot of them surprised me.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/March/Pages/ContractorsontheBattlefieldOutsourcingofMilitaryServices.aspx
KP has been outsourced in many places, and some of the recent transitions haven’t exactly gone smoothly (which has put them in the news). The Army hasn’t completely eliminated all of its own food prep though and there are still some soldiers doing KP duty.
Snopes article referencing some of the rumors going around about food outsourcing:
The Army still has its own cooks. Back in 1989 when I went through Basic the cooks there were contractors. So its not new. It depends where you go if you will see Army cooks or contractors. On the big FOBs in Afghanistan the cooks are all contractors.
I always thought is was Kitchen Patrol. They both sound sarcastic. But then the Army is not known for its (intentional) sarcasm.
Same for the AF-most security on Airforce bases are now handled by men in black uniforms (either Wackenhut or Pinkertons). Its cheaper.
Doggone double posts!
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
Excellent book by Rachel Maddow on the subject. Points out how we - the USA - have almost completely outsourced war.
I’ve wondered how much the need for technical support has forced outsourcing?
As a Computer Analyst I wouldn’t mind working on a military contract. I’d even fly overseas if the pay was right. But going through boot camp and following strict military discipline isn’t for me. I’d only work as a civilian contractor. Unless they bring back the draft. 
I have not read the book so I can not comment on if she is correct in it or not. I can say that your one line synopsis is overblown to the point of absurdity.
In this case, it’s win win – sending someone through boot camp and making sure they’re fit and deployable at all times is expensive. Unless there’s some pressing need for computer analysts in the AOR, they’re not going to deploy you anyway; you can do your analyzing on a computer stateside, after all. Consequently, it’s been common practice to contract out any technical job that’s non-deployable. Combat comm will always be guys in uniform, but my old career field (computer programming) is getting smaller and smaller.
Likewise, you’ll always need a contingent of cooks and kitchen staff who will feed infantry downrange (assuming they’re not so far downrange that they’re eating MREs), and you’re not going to deploy contractors at $150k a year to do that job, especially if there’s some risk that said contractors might wake up in the middle of the night with rockets raining down on them. However, that’s a relatively small number of service personnel; the rest of the positions stateside can be contracted out. Typically, it’s about 80% contractors with a few military positions for training and management (guys gotta learn how to cook, after all).
The food at Fort Jackson is definitely outsourced. The gate security, on the other hand, was outsourced for years but is now going to be military again. This is probably not that great, as it isn’t a permanent detail - my understanding is that soldiers will do it for a few weeks and then rotate out. So the experience base will be as you would imagine.
Base security is very different from base to base. One post I visited a couple years ago for training had Wackenhut as gate security but all on base policing was done by Army MPs. Another large joint base I go to has mostly military personnel manning the gates but all policing on base is done by DOD Police.
A lot of out-sourcing has occurred within CONUS to move troops OCONUS. And, additionally, to the proverbial tip-of-the-spear. This was one way to address the sudden and rising need for US troops during the initial build-up. Also, a lot of bases were converted to entirely contractor base if they served no real military purpose. Like, in Iceland.
Also, it makes sense and it sucks to do KP/gate duty. It costs a lot of money and time to train someone to proficiency and then you use it on something that may or may not apply to their specialty.
:eek:I really hope that Kings Bay does not have contractors as guards.
The idea of outsourcing military security strikes me as odd - surely there’s no shortage of armed people with uniforms at a military base who are serving there and could be tasked with standing at the front gate and keeping ne’er do wells and the generally unauthorised out? How is it cheaper to pay another company to do this?
It’s not sarcasm. “Police” is frequently used in the Army as a synonym for “clean, organize, maintain, etc”.
From here:
Well lets take a post like Fort Eustis. I have not been there since 2008 so I can not say exactly how they do it now. But then they had Wackenhut security working the gate. Eustis is for the most part a training post. Permenant party personnel are there to support and run the various schools that are there. The transient population are there for school. Pulling people out of their jobs or out of school would be possible but impractical. Bringing in soldiers just to work gate duty does not make sense. At the time there were two wars going on. Manning is set by Congress. Its more practical to have the troops where they are needed. And paying guards so much per hour is a lot cheaper than paying salary, housing, food, medical, schooling for family of a soldier.
It has been my experience that KP duty hinges entirely on the location and personnel available. On larger bases and camps, they are more likely to have contracted kitchen staff. On smaller bases and training missions, they still use Soldiers for KP.
This is also not an either/or issue. I was on Bagram last year, and it was a 50/50 split. Some mess halls were mostly contracted, while some mess halls were entirely staffed by military cooks and Soldiers on temporary KP duty.
As for the issue of contracting, I would prefer a world in which Soldiers did all the work, but I understand the financial benefits of hiring civilians. Its also worth pointing out that we’re seeing a LOT of these kinds of civilian jobs vanishing as budgets dry up. Now that the OPTEMPO is slowing down, a lot of the returning Soldiers now have the time to staff some of these administrative positions. Since I returned from my last deployment, I’ve been surprised at how many Soldiers I find behind desks that were manned by civilians a year ago.
Yes, but it’s not always cheaper. There are companies like Blackwater making tons of money for providing security services, at much higher prices than it would cost for a standard-issue GI grunt.
Way back when “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” was in vogue, the military discharged a bunch of translators because they were gay. Even though there was an urgent need for arabic translators at that time. So many of them were hired by a consulting company, which then sold their services to the military. Some of them ended up back at the same base, sitting at the same desk, doing translations just like before. Except now not in uniform, not having to salute, etc. – and paid much more than they were getting as GI’s!