Letter: Army mentality, not workforce, causes acquisition woes

Regarding “Army: Bolstering acquisition workforce could take 10 years,” Lt. Gen. Ross Thompson is misleading Congress and avoiding the fact that the Army wants to appoint certain people into career paths.  That would guarantee that people who have Defense Acquisition University degrees would be put into positions instead of accepting those former military employees and current civil service workers who can already perform these tasks. Many have the knowledge and skills, but are considered to be ostentatious in nature. Many of those positions could be filled within two years if the practice from the top down was not to ostracize capable employees from advancing into careers that would advance the level of competent employees in the acquisition, logistics and technology arena! As Mark Twain used to say, that is a sad but amusing trick. More than 30 years ago, we were supposed to be addressing these needs and pushing the same work ethic for the entire Defense Department. We keep separating them by attempting to justify more employees to do the same tasks, but playing the shell game with the funds that are paid to contractors to illustrate the funds are not coming out of overhead funds but from a different source. The art of prestidigitation is best left to the magicians!

Anthony Gomez
CAAA

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