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Gotta say that MRF54 pretty much summed it up. If the corporate leadership are all about the profit and not about the mission, then people with similar mindsets will gravitate there. They will also not generally screen potential employees with problems in those areas out, as long as they have the other skills required. News flash: Many of the personnel who are seeking work as contractors are out there for a reason, whether it is physical, financial, mental, or ethical. Responsible leadership seeks to identify why applicants are there and eliminates those with more serious problems. More profit-oriented, ethically-challenged leadership will not, as long as the individual can meet the minimum standards for the job, and will work under the cost required to make money on the contract.
IMHO, anyone who's primary duty responsibility involves carrying a gun needs to be a uniformed service member. No issues with the DFAC, laundry, etc. being run by contractors. Shooters should be uniformed service members. If we do not have enough troops to fill all of the requirements, then we need to grow force structure. This is (again IMHO), where SecDef screwed the pooch. He was trying to downsize an already undersized ground force, ignored the warnings of those who knew better, and apparently, surrounded himself with yes-men. One thing this war has demonstrated is that we have too few troops in the ground services. If we have to raise military pay 30% or pay $50,000 bonuses to attract another 20,000 11B10s, so be it. To effectively fight the GWOT (and maintain the two MTW strategy) we need a 12-16 division force structure. You didn't see Kim or the Iranians getting all froggy after Desert Storm or OIF's initial stages. The fact that a bunch of street thugs have kept the majority of the US military tied up for three years has caused others to wonder if the Alpha male has lost his fangs. Hiring armed contractors to perform combat (or near combat) functions has not helped.
PSDs are what opened the Pandora's box here. The identified requirement for PSDs exceeded the number of qualified personnel avaialble for that mission, especially when the majority of the units normally tasked for PSDs had other, higher priority missions. Maybe that deficiency should have been identified in planning and been addressed prior to hostilities.
Contractors on the tip of the spoon, GOOD. Contractors on the tip of the spear, BAD.
You violate ethics or standards in fulfilling your contracts, you should be put out of business. Your employees engage in criminal misconduct while deployed in your service, they should be held accountable and you should be investigated for your selection and vetting process that put them there.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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