Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosman
Perhaps Muck could make some more sense of why Blackwater can do the job and not trained military?
|
I'm going to be somewhat hamstrung in this conversation since I have an NDA with the company in question.
It has nothing to do with whether the military can handle the mission and everything to do with how you want to prioritize their manpower.
To begin with while EP work utilizes similar skill sets as the typical military operator (ie shoot, move & communicate)...there are some significant differences.
In EP everything is about the principal (ie the dip[censored] you're protecting). The sole responsibility is to keep he/she/them alive.
If a squad of grunts comes under fire, typically they react by agressively trying to break the ambush via fire superiority. For the EP team the whole goal is to get the principal out of the killzone.
Just like anything else the best way to become proficient is to practice, practice, practice until that muscle memory is programmed and you can react without thinking...and then practice some more.
That means that in order to create a competent EP team that is the ONLY thing they are going to be training for. That takes bodies away from other missions. EP work required individuals who are highly self motivated, able to make quick decisions & who can also shoulder large amounts of responsibility.
Not every trigger puller can do that and the ones who can are also the same guys who matriculate into the high speed low drag outfits.
Do you want the Delta & DEVGRU guys doing what they have traditionally been best at? Or do you want them babysitting administrators in suits?
There are only so many bodies to go around.
If you want the active duty folks to pick up that mission as well, that means you are stealing talented NCOs from somebody else and sending them to specialized (and expensive) schools (EP, tactical driving, specialized shooting courses etc etc) and THEN you have to find someone to replace them...and someone to replace their replacements and so on down the line until you're either asking Congress for more bodies...or someone does without.