Is Sailors attacking Sailors.
It is not anything else……in my humble opinion.
Now granted, I was never stationed in Bahrain, but I spent more than my fair share of time there trying to get a building completed so we could give a select group of Sailors a decent place to work. Because of Arab petulance and stupidity on the part of those folks working in the hallowed halls of an old building in San Dog , it did not get done. However throughout that time, driving back and forth across the island I never really felt unsafe-at least anymore unsafe than an American in the middle of a bunch of stinking Arabs should feel.
Which gets to one of the dirty little secrets of today’s modern Navy. Why have not the dependents been allowed to return to Bahrain?
For those who don’t follow the Navy closely or military matters in general, let me bring you up to speed. In 2003, in one of the most asinine decisions that the US Navy made, it got permission from DOD to order all dependents-wives and children of serving military members- home. The ostensible reason was because of increased threat to US personnel. Interestingly enough, however, the ban only applied to Navy personnel-who comprise 90% of the personnel in Bahrain. Somehow the powers that be convinced the folks in higher echelons that it was the right thing to do. Do USAF personnel have some sort of force field on them?
Suffice it to sat the Bahrainis were not amused. Despite all my misgivings about Arabs-and I have a lot of them, since they rank at the bottom of the demographic food chain for me-the Bahrainis have been solid allies of the US for a long time and they have done a lot to support the US when the rest of the Arab world would not even so much as lift a finger. They put up with a fortress of a Naval base in their midst-and they have to put up with a steady influx of people into -a lot more than need to be there IMHO.
Its been over 4 years since that happened. Iraq is or has been pacified, depending on who you wish to believe . And yet, Bahrain is still an unaccompanied duty station.
Why is this an issue? Because in our “diverse” mixed gender Navy, a place like Bahrain is ripe for things like this to happen. Why? Because with people doing year to year and half tours, alone, many living off base-its a foregone conclusion that there is more at play here than has been publicly released. And when it is released-trust me its gonna be ugly.
My theory? Keeping the dependents away allows for two things: 1) It allows the leadership there to work their staffs like dogs. I have an acquaintance here who used to work there. His quote? “I worked 17 hours a day during the work week and on the weekends just 8 hours”. Now I guess to some out there, that logic makes sense-its never made sense to me and I no longer have that kind of work ethic. Life is too short. The second reason is the money. With COLA and other incentives like tax free people make a lot of money coming through there. Even civilians get paid a healthy differential.
What does the US lose by doing this? A lot. If families were there, there would be a lot less unauthorized ass going on and there might even be less of a need for a curfew. ( Like it really works so well-the multitude of ways people beat it is the subject of a whole different post). Also it might actually show Arabs and the Arab world in general that Americans are good people. People tend to underestimate the value of what spouses and kids bring to the effort of building goodwill for the US.
What about numbers? Well as I have said before, when it comes to the US in the Middle East, less is more. A lot of the staff things that do go on in Bahrain either don’t need to happen-or they can be outsourced to someplace where people can do three year tours. For those that stay-the ability to have people who actually have a reason to remain committed and focused on what they are doing-instead of turning over every year is priceless.
Which is why the US Navy won’t do it. Working people harder not smarter is the only management style many of the leaders in DC and in Bahrain know.
Thus endeth the rant for today.
Skippy-san,
I was stationed several times in Bahrain and made my last visit there a couple of months ago. It had been about 10 years since my previous visit. What a difference.
In just my lifetime we went from little ASU; my first posting was to the MEF Flagship homeported in Bahrain at a little base that one could toss a rock across to Festung NAVCENT, a vast fortress hidden in plain sight. To put it another way. ASU would have fit into the current PX and rattled around.
Somehow, probably through the efficiencies that bless us in the new computer age, the little base that handled the exact same job with a permanent staff of approximately 145 people in 1984 must now be done by 2000. Aren’t computers wonderful?
When I was there for a year on the NAVCENT staff back when NAVCENT and C5F meant the same thing, we worked for CENTCOM and COMPACFLT and perhaps other people and life was good. We had cell phones so our working day was driven by OUR requirement to communicate with folks in Hawaii or Tampa. If we didn’t NEED to talk to any of them, we left the office every day by 1700. Unfortunately, if we were compelled to deal with either of them we had to suit our working day/hours to theirs if we wanted to call them. That might mean staying in till 2200 if we needed something from them. Bless cell phones.
VADM Redd was very happy that his impetus to improve the QOL had resulted in 600 family members being in Bahrain by mid 1996. VADM Fargo inherited that and kept on keeping on. However, by the time that Fargo got there the evidence was clear. Americans in Bahrain were being targeted and it was getting uglier every day.
EODMU5 Det Bahrain responded to as many as 5 bomb threats a day at the American School and we had the gas cylinder bomb attacks every night directed at places where westerners were to be found. There were bombings in the major hotels frequented by westerners. There was every reason to believe that American blood would soon be spilled. It did not help that every Eid the emir would let out of jail those who had been most inflamed in their denunciation of Americans.
I don’t understand why the footprint has grown so enormous over there and why it takes thousands to do what we used to do with a few dozen. It reminds me of C6F’s modern appreciation of the ridiculous and the sublime: “In 1945 C6F/CINCUSNAVEUR consisted of not more than a couple of dozen officers and men and they were responsible for oversight for over 12000 aircraft flights and more that 1000 ship movements each day. In 2002 C6F/CINCUSNAVEUR are responsible for oversight of not more than a dozen flights or ship movements per day. However, this oversight is now performed by more than 3000 officers and men plus their 12000 family members.” I put it in quotes but Ulrich actually said it much better than that.
Back when I started out in MEF, C2 was exercised from the flagship by MEF and whomever could fit into the SH-3 that flew them out to the southeast corner of OPAREA Hotel every morning and landed them on LaSalle. They all invariably flew off every afternoon not later than 1600 and flew home to Bahrain. In 369 days that I was onboard, the Admiral commanding MEF spent not one single night onboard and never worked on a weekend. Contrast with today. Now, C5F works for NAVCENT who works for an entity called CFMCC who works for CENTCOM who works for JCS. Toss in that they have to keep CNIC happy and work through CFFC and CPF and you have a modern recipe for misery.
Placing the blame for the very unfortunate incident that started this fingering of the keyboard is off the mark. We have far more sailors killed and wounded at comparably sized commands every day. Any carrier or NAVBASE in the states loses between 10 to 100 times the number of sailors to the carnage of living in Norfolk or NAVBASE Ventura County. Duty in Bahrain is tough but life is good there. Nobody shoots you or carjacks you just because you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I started going to Bahrain right after the dependents got evicted. The evolution had not been coordinated with State-or the embassy. It had simply been run through DOD channels. The Bahrainis were really angry about it for more than a couple of reasons. That affected everything we did in trying to negotiate for space at Bahrain Airport. As a result they began trying to move a lot of operations to Al Udeied even though from an operational and moreso from a logistics standpoint it made very little sense.
It did save money though-even though it screwed over a large group of Sailors.
My point is that there are a lot of Westerners that live in Bahrain. And I have been told that of the 2000 folks there almost half are there for force protection in one way, shape, or form. I’ve always said that there are too many people in Fortress Bahrain and I still believe that. It also did not help that NAVCENT Rear was disestablished in Tampa-which IMHO was a big mistake.
It is funny you mentione Ulrich and his misguided attempts to “reform” Sixth Fleet”. In the end he created a vacuum that other commands had to fill. I still think that a lot of the Bahrain oversight could be run from Europe. At a minimum the people and the various task forces could be divested between Oman, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain which would allow a reasonable footprint in any location and a decent quality of life if the US was willing to treat the personnel there like expats and pay for already existing housing.
During all my travels to Bahrain every incident I heard about was Sailor on Sailor related. First Classes would let Seaman use their apts as “crash pads” and inevitably one or two would get the idea that female Sailors should provide “benefits”. As for Arabs targeting Americans-seems to me the threat still exists especially given the number of people who live off base. Maybe if so many people made a better effort to blend in-instead of looking hip-hop wanna bes’ and things would be better.
A big reason the dependents aren’t back is that it’s considered a tax free combat zone. One of VADM Walsh’s priorities was to get the families back so there would be less staff churn. As it is, people leave about 3 months after they get really good at their jobs.
The push-back from CENTCOM was “If there are families we can’t call it a combat zone anymore, even though you’re in Iranian missile range.” and we’re not not willing to decertify it (probably as a CYA).
I had a 3 br 2 ba flat with a maid to myself while I was there. The weather sucks but the accomodations are pretty sweet.
Name a place that is not within missile range of some place anymore. Every Sailor in the FDNF is within range of N. Korean missiles (as are 147 Million Japanese….).
I’ve got a better idea. Reform the tax code so that military and civil service working overseas can have the same tax exclusion that contractors get. Someone assigned PCS to Bahrain would qualify and that in turn would reduce the number of people coming into Bahrain just to do a “touch and go” so they can get a months tax free. ( Or two months if they are really
unethicaldevious.).Skippy,
The big story there is what is touched on here and there – Staff Bloat. CENTCOM is going through a 30% cut right now. Eisenhower fought the entire European front with a smaller staff – with almost no technology beyond HF.
Staff bloat is a significant problem not just in Bahrain and CENTCOM – but in the USN/DOD as a whole. Looked at how many ships are in a CSG, a DESRON, heck a VP Wing compared to 15-40 years ago?
Well, you need all those O6 jobs to make all those Flag Officers so we can have all those … well …. Flag Officers ….. Rinse. Repeat.
Oh, as for the background on the killing of the two female Sailors. Yep, there has to be a Soap Opera out there … I’ll wait for the final report or leak.
Well, squadrons in a VP Wing – but you know what I mean.
No arguement there-but part of that is because we cut in the wrong direction. Ships and Squadrons first-then we forgot the staffs. And the Navy still has exactly as many flags as it had during the Gulf War.