Navy finds new problems with berthing fees and services, and this time Fat Leonard had nothing to do with it.

Gen. Gus Perna, head of Army Materiel Command, is a brave man. He came to Pacific Command’s AOR and announced he wants the Army to stop building the transport ships and so-called watercraft that could be crucial to any conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Everything that Marine wears — from their boots to their socks to their utilities to their helmet — is all going to be changed,” the Commandant said. “We’ve got money now to do that, and so we’ve got to make it happen now. We’ve got to make it happen now, because I’m not going to make the assumption that that money’s going to be there.”

“If you look back at the Iraq war, one of the most dangerous duties was driving, riding in a convoy between Kuwait City and Baghdad. We lost many, many soldiers, too many soldiers, to IED (roadside bomb) attacks, other attacks on convoys,” Esper said. “I could’ve reduced that vulnerability, that sacrifice, (with) unmanned convoys or convoys that were manned by (only) a couple of soldiers.”

It was a Marine reservist, transport officer Maj. Chris Thobaben, who had the idea to repurpose the scout drones for logistics after seeing too many comrades killed or wounded on supply runs in Iraq.

“My eyes are watering with what our young people can do right now,” the Assistant Commandant said.
“They’re really smart and they’ve got a lot of really good ideas,” Commandant Neller said. “We would be well served to turn them loose.”

Faced with erratic funding from Congress, the Navy has pursued cost-efficiency so rigorously that it has cut corners and compromised peacetime safety and, very possibly, wartime performance. Crews are shorthanded and spare parts stockpiles are low.

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