Please disable your Ad Blocker to better interact with this website.

Opinion

If The Media Reported The News, You’d Know About This Wasteful Military Spending

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Some of you, if you’ve been reading my stuff for years, know that whatever is on my mind, sooner or later pops out of my mouth. This is one of those times. There have been some “earth-shaking” events happening lately and it troubles me that Americans are becoming more and more complacent about them. As a civilized country and “the leader of the free world” being our President, it’s a wonder that more Americans are not outraged by these events and what they might portend. What are they you ask? Ok, let’s look at a few.

First, but not necessarily the most important, is the utter rudeness being displayed by certain members of the Washington Press Corps, or whatever they call that bunch the President addresses now and then. It has been a steady decline in civility and polite behavior for several years now and, yes, I’m going to lay that blame right at the feet of the former occupant of the White House, that would be Hussein and his Horde. The other day the reporter for CNN(which I call the Counterfeit News Network), Jim Acosta, was being even more insistent in his questions to the President. To his credit, Mr. Trump answered the question and attempted to get to another reporter…but Acosta would not relinquish the microphone to the aide. The President, at this point, rebuked Acosta and the microphone was passed to another reporter. It has now come to pass that the press credentials for Acosta have been “suspended”. Frankly, it’s been way too long for that to have happened.

As a retired Navy guy, I’m always interested in news that concerns the Navy…and of late, it hasn’t been good. As an example, and if the truth be known, this may have been a deliberate action, but let’s see what’s going on. The headline says “U.S. Navy’s Costliest Carrier Was Delivered Without Elevators to Lift Bombs”. The U.S. Navy’s costliest warship, was delivered last year without elevators needed to lift bombs from below deck magazines for loading on fighter jets. The USS Gerald R. Ford, a super-carrier, has/had problems with the 11 elevators for the ship built by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. and add to long-standing reliability and technical problems with two other core systems — the electromagnetic system to launch planes and the arresting gear to catch them when they land. The only purpose of this behemoth is to be able to launch and recover aircraft in a swift and safe method…and there seems to be a glitch in both of those techniques. Not a good thing. The Ford, it appears, is a guinea pig for these systems. Again, not a good thing. The GAO(Government Accounting Office) apparently thinks that the Navy has not properly tested this equipment BEFORE installing it in the ship.

Another one of our services, this time it’s the Air Force, has come under fire for yet another outlandish purchase. No, this time it isn’t the $435 hammer or the $600 toilet seat…but it IS something equally ridiculous…at least in my not-so-humble opinion. The Air Force, trying to do this quietly, has purchased something which caught the eye of a US Senator. In the past three years the 60th Aerial Squadron at Travis Air Force base in California purchased dozens of cups for nearly $56,000. The cups can reheat liquids on board the Air Force’s fleet of cargo aircraft. The squadron reported that the cups have handles that break easily when dropped. Since replacement handles aren’t available, the whole cup has to be replaced. In 2016, the squadron said that it purchased 10 hot cups for $6,930 and that the price for each cup surged from $693 to $1,220 in 2018, resulting in a total expenditure of $32,000 for 25 cups. The math may have been off. That’s actually a price of $1,280 for each of the 25 cups. The Secretary of the Air Force, Heather Wilson, said the item in question is a specially manufactured electronic water heater that plugs into aircraft systems.

Folks, I used to drive a lot, and I drove charter buses for years, and NEVER did I use a “breakable” coffee cup/mug. For about $3 in today’s money, I could get a metal, insulated mug, with a handle, and enjoy hot coffee for about an hour and a half. Granted, there’s no convenience stores in the sky, but an old-fashioned coffee urn, one that might make 25 cups of coffee, is made of stainless steel and costs just under $100, could be bolted to some sort of table in the aircraft. Put one of these, along with the accompanying mugs, in every aircraft which would need one, and I guarantee you will not pay anywhere near what the Air Force is shelling out, and may I remind you that what they spend is YOUR money!

Parting shot: Wake up, America! Your young people are being indoctrinated to despise our country, its government, its place in the world and anything else the “Central Indoctrination Centers”(aka schools and colleges) are being paid, WITH YOUR MONEY, to teach them. For years, the knowledge base for students has been narrowing so now we have groups like BLM, Antifa, the Women’s Marches, and so on, whose sole ambition, it would appear, is to destroy the United States. Please, don’t let this happen to our country.

Larry Usoff

Larry Usoff, US Navy Retired. Articulate. Opinionated. Patriotic. Conservative. Cultured enough so that I can be taken almost anywhere. Makes no excuses for what I say or do, but takes responsibility for them. Duty. Honor. Country. E-mail me at: amafrog@att.net

Related Articles