The cost of the military is subordinate in amount and priority to the pet projects of the lawmakers and their special interest groups, lobbyists and of course their personal agendas.

Ladydoc's observations are 100% correct. Just like the infrastructure in our country that has been allowed to deteriorate to a point of gross neglect to shunt money to their special projects.....ditto for the military.

A priority item that a field commander approves today as needed to maintain position, save lives or support a mission takes a minimum of 90++ days to get approved with too many taking 6 months....purely political. The aides get the requests, then they do their second guessing of how well the request might be viewed by their boss(es)....the ones that get forwarded then go through the same second guessing by the lawmaker as well as how it fits his or his constituencies agendas.....meanwhile...the troops wait.

The system is broken....all the 545 in Washington know it...because it is business as usual....nobody minds, or cares and nothing gets changed from one administration to another.

When another bridge falls or a military disaster happens tied to fauklty equipment AND when the media decides to ride that horse....will there be some attention. If the lawmakers in Washington were firefighters they would, everyone of them, wait until they saw the flames and felt the heat before making a decision whether to fight the fire or not. Note I did not say to decide to fight the fire.

btk