Strange purchase from DOD after shutdown - $87 Million for Spraying Devices

LABTECH767
reply to post by robbystarbuck

 

Hopefully they are finally going to douse the poppy fields in afghanistan as the troop's withdraw but I hope it is not the other option of weaponised aerosol devices to depopulate urban centres wage war against civilians as whomever give's such an order no matter how long or thourough there murder will eventually be cought and shot.

Why would they destroy the poppy fields?

You do know we have been guarding them for years now right?

reply to post by antar


Not all bases do. Some use a mix of military and civilian some use all civilian, some use military.

Some use civilian for housing and off ramp areas, and military for the ramp and runway areas.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I had a cousin in the USAF who worked game control down in Florida. Of course this was back in the seventies/eighties before the DoD started contracting everything out. He'd send us pictures of him and his flatboat.

I always found that amusing, a Zoomie in a boat! LOL I just thought it humorously ironic.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Some places still use them for game control. They get to fly falcons (the birds not the jet), and do all kinds of fun things.

Blarneystoner

Zaphod58
reply to post by Blarneystoner

 

Tell that to all the crews that died over the years because they didn't keep the weeds down.

Like I said, not all the bases contract it. Some of the overseas bases use military personnel, as do some of the US bases.

Tell 'em what? That I don't believe the DOD spend $87 million on sprayers for weeds? Uh... I'm not sure I see your point... but another nice attempt... invoking an emotive argument to diffuse and debunk. Bravo... well played.

It's all good Sir. You've done your part to try and convince me. I remain unconvinced. I'm sure we can both live with that.

You do know that the government always gets overcharged for almost everything they buy, right? And if you were familiar with the military, you would know that every base has a on going area beautification going on a daily basis. Some times it is extra duty for those who have screwed up but at other times entire units are tasked.

Also, many who serve don't really take care of lawnmowers, sprayers and weed wackers. Their line of reasoning is that if it is broke, they won't have to do it. When I was a Sergeant, it was at this point I gave them pruning shears or scissors. The job had to get done after all.

They usually took care of the equipment after that but new people would come, the old timers would leave and we'd be back at square one again.

87 million for bug sprayers? That is a lot to take in really.

In my 20 years of service grounds maintenance went from a punishment detail, to a daily unit detail, to contracts for civilians.

As far as one poster asked: How many lawn care companies can handle a military base? I would say a minimum of three per base. Any money given out by the government will create companies to handle the work if need be.

It should be simply to prove/disprove if this is simply a bug swatter contract. When was the last time we spent 87 million on sprayers to keep flight lines clear (or any other reason)?

reply to post by 200Plus


When was the last time we spent $200 on a hammer. Or $600 on a toilet seat.

Do you really think they spent $87 million on sprayers? Of course not. But they have to hide that black money somewhere, and where better than making people think they're utterly incompetent and spending ridiculous amounts of money on things like this.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I worked Range Control for several months. What a sweet gig! Of course it was 6 days a week with 12-14 hour days, but it wasn't stressful at all and I wasn't micro-managed either. And as a E6 I could tell a O6 that his unit needed to do police call until I thought it was clean.

To think that people get to do that daily for a job? I'm jealous. (It's also really hard to get into as a job. You have to know somebody.)

reply to post by Zaphod58


Now that I would agree with 100%.

You could also throw in padding their pockets with kick backs.

I just found the whole idea of 87 million for pest control beyond belief.

reply to post by 200Plus


Most of the time the kickbacks come in the form of high paying jobs after retirement. Not so much money, as that's too easy to trace.

Spraying equipment is used for bio and chemical warfare cleanup.
en.wikipedia.org...
techlinkcenter.org...
www.ecbc.army.mil...

This equipment is changed regularly to make sure it works if the time comes.

The old equipment is some times given to other government agencies like the forest service, homeland security or dept of agriculture for insect control or weed abatement.

DOD probably looks after its own weed management on their bases. These systems can go for up to $5000 each, that would make a minimum of 17,500 sprayers, and up to 43,500 . How many bases are there? How many tractor are there in the US military?

If there are 1 million people in the US military then that would make 1 sprayer for every 23 to 57 people. Something does not add up.