>From: "Brandon" >I'm not sorry I bought the HMMWV (yet), but frankly I am quite surprised that the military takes such poor care of their (our) vehicles. Remember, alot of military vehicles these days are maintained by CIVILIAN CONTRACT, so it could easily have been a civilian that did this to your HMMWV. I would consider the earplug an isolated incident. As for the other faults, Joe Soldier has alot of other requirements besides solely vehicle maintenance. The overworked mechanics have far more vehicles to care for than you do with your one or two. That is not a good excuse for not doing what is right, but it is the reality of todays current military operations. Unfortunately, there aren't always enough GOOD mechanics around. If the military paid it's soldiers what a good civilian mechanic made (not to mention if they would quit sending them on short notice, long term deployments), he or she would likely have alot more pride in their work as well as a desire to stay in the service. Unfortunately, the poor wrench turner in the (insert your favorite branch of the service here) sees no end in sight. Beside working for less than minimum wage fixing the vehicles some other idiot broke, he or she still has to do PT every morning. Go to the range, pull police call, stand 2-3 formations everyday, etc. Bottomline, they have their hands full. I speak from experience. I have been a Battalion Maintenance Officer for an M109A2 Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion with 80 tracked vehicles and over 100 wheeled vehicles. I was a Battery Commander with 18 tracked vehicles and 15 wheeled vehicles. Later, I was a Battalion Executive Officer of a light artillery battalion with over 100 wheeled vehicles. I tend to think my unit equipment was better maintained than most civilian vehicles, especially when you consider the rough service they all saw. Most of my mechanics worked 12+ hours days most days. So, think twice before you talk about how poorly the miltary takes care of its VAST FLEET of military vehicles when your comparison is against your one or two vehicles. Jim Rice US Army
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 23:13:20 PST