President Harris needs to add a Humanitarian Division to the Army

[jmowreader]

When I was in 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) we got sent on so many disaster relief missions that people were starting to call the unit the 10th Humanitarian Division. Me being somewhat of an asshole (who had a laser printer and desktop publishing software) I even made an application form for it, which became strangely popular…somehow even the division commander, who thought it funny as hell, wound up with one. They generally surgically excise any sense of humor from generals; how this one missed his appointment is an open question.

Well…now that climate change has created disasters like Hurricane Helene, we need a real one - and this is how to set it up.

The 1st Humanitarian Division will contain:
Six battalions of combat engineers organized into two brigades. Engineers have a lot of heavy equipment. Each brigade will consist of one earthmoving battalion, one bridging battalion and one building-construction battalion.

Three medical battalions organized into a brigade.

One prime power production battalion.

Two transportation battalions.

One supply brigade of three battalions.

One attached battalion of US Marshals. They will not be in the Army but will travel with them.

One attached US Federal Court battalion, also not in the Army.

One aviation brigade containing UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, two UH-60 and one CH-47 battalions.

One contracting unit to bring relief supplies into theater.

A Military Intelligence battalion that’s heavy on linguists. Very important in places like Florida. When we did Andrew we built an ad hoc linguist unit by grabbing all the Hispanic troops in division and sending them in first under my platoon leader (whose big purpose in life was learning languages - she spoke eight of them fluently and probably knows twice that many now), but they really need organic language capacity in this division.

Anheuser-Busch’s Cartersville, GA, brewery. This brewery has for many decades made emergency water for relief efforts. As part of the 1st Humanitarian Division they’ll be able to install a dedicated water canning line and dedicated warehouses so they can make this water all the time and not have to stop making beer.

Its own fleet of cargo planes and airliners. Because they won’t need to have the ability to offload combat equipment quickly like C-130s or C-17s do the cargo planes can be converted airliners. The Defense Department contracts with civilian airlines for a lot of their non-tactical transport, so being able to move those loads to the 1st Humanitarian when that division isn’t doing disaster relief would save a lot of money.

What’s missing from this division? Infantry, armor and artillery. None are necessary for disaster relief so they won’t have them. If disaster relief in a foreign country devolves into a war the 82d Airborne is still available.

Trump won’t do this but Harris should.

[waterwatcher123]

1. Good idea - maybe involve the National Guard too.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

2. I think this is a wonderful idea,

of course, you would recommend the Marines combat engineers for the 6 Batt., we were, and still are, the best in the business.
Of course, I may be a tad bit biased, the US Army's combat engineers are almost as good as the Marines.
I would also include a Batt. of Navy Seabees, they're very good also.

Great ideas you have there.

[Abnredleg]

3. The military already has a major recruiting problem

What with only 27% of the recruiting pool meeting standards and a 10% reduction in 18 year olds due to the Great Recession. A better option would be to enhance the National Guard.

The military is struggling to maintain current numbers so there is no way they’re going to be able to raise an additional division, particularly one that adds no combat capability.

[jmowreader]

4. The biggest problem the Army is currently facing is MHS Genesis

MHS Genesis is the military's electronic health records system. They're rejecting people for childhood conditions that wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow before MHS Genesis...broken arms in childhood and things like that.

Enhancing the National Guard worries me in a case like this. If you want to send a National Guard unit across the state line the governor has to agree to allow them to go...and what happens if California needs assistance and Texas decides not to send any because they hate California?

[Abnredleg]

5. The MHS Genesis is being dealt with

The military just announced that they were able to meet their recruiting goals for the past year. The next few years look grim, however., due to fundamental demographic issues. It's not just the US that is dealing with this problem - all western countries are struggling with the impact of aging populations. Even China is struggling to keep their military fully manned.

[jmowreader]

6. Another problem is that the Army doesn't really teach job-related skills

I ran a data center in the Army, but when you try to get a job doing that in the civilian world? "No degree, no job."

If I would have gone to college and gotten my IT degree it would have taken FOUR years - not the 12 I spent in the Army - and I would have been immediately hireable. So what they need to do is look at all their MOS, sort them into three categories: jobs you can do immediately after leaving the service, jobs that will require some additional training and/or certification to do in the civilian world, and jobs that simply don't apply to the civilian world.

For instance:
Jobs you can do immediately: Truck driver. You need a CDL, but give every troop in this field a week of Temporary Duty to go home and get a CDL. Cook, of course. A lot of our logistics jobs. Heavy equipment operators. I knew a motor sergeant who sent all his troops who had been in the unit two years to ASE Certification tests so they could get jobs after they got out, but that's rare. This fucking guy got himself one of those "We have ASE-Certified Mechanics on duty" signs they hang outside auto repair shops and screwed it to the wall in his maintenance bay...apparently no one in the chain of command cared that he had such a thing because it had been there for years.

Jobs that require additional training and/or certification: Combat medic. All the Army's combat medics are nationally-certified EMTs, but they don't have state certification so they can't work as EMTs when they get home. This one could be fixed by having them do the state tests. Military police. Firefighters.

Jobs that don't have (much) application to the civilian world: Field Artillery. There is a very small amount of field artillery in the civilian world; they've discovered the best and safest thing to use to clear avalanches is a 105mm howitzer, but...come on, there's only snow for a few months a year. Most of the combat arms jobs.

So, the solution here is to get the first two categories the additional training they need to work in the civilian world, and make sure the people in the third category go to college for a useful career either after-hours in the military or at a university after they get out of the service.

[mopinko]

8. part 2 cd b addressed by smart govs.

just write a rule- x mos = y cert.
that’s it. this is a pet peeve of my bro. nephew went into the army to b an r.n. was a surgical nurse at reed. came home to cali. was told- u have to start at nursing 101 if u want to b a nurse in this state.

that’s utterly insane on soooo many levels.

[maxrandb]

7. When I was on the USS KEARSARGE (LHD3)

We used to conduct NEO OPS (Non-combatant Evacuee Ops).

The Navy Amphibs are designed for this type of mission. We could convert into a 600 bed hospital, had two full surgical suites, and helicopter squadrons for rescue and evacuation ops.

[mopinko]

9. we dont make nearly enough use of our hospital ships.

[jmowreader]

10. Unfortunately, hospital ships won't work in Nashville

But MASH units would.

[mopinko]

12. no, they wont.

but they cd help in many many places. not sure how small of a waterway they can travel. can they navigate the mississippi? w the great lakes states and both coasts, that’s a lot.

we dont use them enough internationally either.

[Autumn]

11. That would be great. More useful than Space Force.