Administration Everywhere

by Phil Rowe
Admin folks are everywhere. Even in combat areas you find them. You'd think that a war zone is the one place that clerical and administration types would be unnecessary. Well, think again. You cannot get away from 'em. The cult of paperwork is too deeply entrenched in the military psyche.

Consider what we encountered at the 12th TRS (12th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron) during the Viet Nam era. We had more headquarters and admin types than we did combatants, or at least it seemed that way. At the top of the "in-country" Admin hierarchy was MACV (Military Assistance Command - Viet Nam). On the Air Force side next came the 7th Air Force headquarters. Both of these high level outfits were crawling with clerks, typists and paper-shufflers.

Going down the reconnaissance line from 7th AF you come to the 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing. The 460th had its own headquarters building with yet more admin folks. And right next door was the headquarters of the 12th TRS. Not more than a stone's throw away was the 16th TRS, again with admin and clerical folks. It's mind-boggling.

And just within our own 12th TRS we had two different, separate and distinct kinds of clerical and admin folks. The squadron commander had is own administrative fiefdom. Here they are, complete with typewriters, wall charts, filing cabinets and yes, even pencil sharpeners. Back in the 1960's there weren't many desktop computers. I guess the ones that did exist were not allowed in combat zones

And the squadron Operations Officer too had his own admin and clerical team. Here is the Operations Desk, ably manned by the sergeant who kept the paperwork flowing. Note the filing cabinets. The war would have been lost even sooner if we didn't have these, perhaps. Or was it that those files served as a protective bunker for the admin types to hide behind during the mortar and rocket attacks?

I guess than even the Romans of old did it too. They probably brought along a horde of clerks and tablet shufflers. Yet the sheer magnitude of this non-combatant side of what goes on is beyond comprehension. And I have addressed only the USAF side. There were Army, Navy, Marine and who knows how many other admin groups "in-country" at dozens of bases, camps and headquarters.

How could we have lost?