{"id":93098,"date":"2025-12-27T01:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T06:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=93098"},"modified":"2025-12-29T09:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T14:00:17","slug":"qotd-the-us-department-of-defense-does-the-twelve-days-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/12\/27\/qotd-the-us-department-of-defense-does-the-twelve-days-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The US Department of War does “The Twelve Days of Christmas”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The President signed an EO<\/acronym> directing the Department of War to assist Santa with the Twelve Days of Xmas.<\/p>\n

Status of acquisitions follows:<\/p>\n

Day 1 – Partridge in a Pear Tree<\/strong>:
\nThe Army and Air Force are in the process of deciding whose area of responsibility Day 1 falls under.
\nSince the partridge is a bird, Air Force believes it should have the lead. Army, however, feels trees are part of the land component command’s area of responsibility.<\/p>\n

After three months of discussion and repeated OpsDeps tank sessions, a $1M study has been commissioned to decide who should lead this joint program.<\/p>\n

Day 2 \u2013 Two Turtle Doves<\/strong>:
\nSince doves are birds, the Air Force claims responsibility. However, turtles are amphibious, so the Navy-Marine Corps team feel they should take the lead. Initial studies show that turtles and doves may have interoperability problems.<\/p>\n

Terms of reference are being coordinated for a four-year, $10M DARPA study.<\/p>\n

Day 3 \u2013 Three French Hens<\/strong>:
\nAt State Department instigation, the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs has blocked off-shore purchase of hens, from the French or anyone else.<\/p>\n

A $6M program is being developed to find an acceptable domestic alternative.<\/p>\n

Day 4 \u2013 Four Calling Birds<\/strong>:
\nSource selection has been completed, with the contract awarded to AT&T.<\/p>\n

However, the award is being challenged by a small disadvantaged business.<\/p>\n

Day 5 \u2013 Five Golden Rings<\/strong>:
\nNo available rings meet MILSPEC for gold plating.<\/p>\n

A three-year, $5M accelerated development program has been initiated.<\/p>\n

Day 6 \u2013 Six Geese a-Laying<\/strong>:
\nSix geese have been acquired.<\/p>\n

However, the shells of their eggs seem to be very fragile. It might have been a mistake to build the production facility on a nuclear waste dump at former Air Force base closed under BRAC.<\/p>\n

Day 7 \u2013 Seven Swans a-Swimming<\/strong>:
\nFourteen swans have been killed trying to get through the Navy SEAL training program.<\/p>\n

The program has been put on hold while the training procedures are reviewed to determine why the washout rate is so high.<\/p>\n

Day 8 \u2013 Eight Maids a-Milking<\/strong>:
\nThe entire class of maids a-milking training program at Aberdeen is involved in a sexual harassment suit against the Army.<\/p>\n

The program has been put on hold pending resolution of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Day 9 \u2013 Nine Ladies Dancing<\/strong>:
\nRecruitment of Ladies has been halted by a lawsuit from the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Association”.<\/p>\n

Members claim they have a right to dance and wear women’s clothing as long as they’re off duty.<\/p>\n

Day 10 \u2013 Ten Lords a-Leaping<\/strong>:
\nThe ten lords have been abducted by terrorists. Congress has approved $2M in funding to conduct a rescue operation.<\/p>\n

Army Special Forces and a USMC MEU(SOC) are conducting a “NEO-off” competition for the right to rescue.<\/p>\n

Day 11 \u2013 Eleven Pipers Piping<\/strong>:
\nThe pipe contractor delivered the pipes on time. However, he thought DoD wanted smoking pipes. DoD lost the claim due to defective specifications.<\/p>\n

A $22M dollar retrofit program is in process to bring the pipes into spec.<\/p>\n

Day 12 \u2013 Twelve Drummers Drumming<\/strong>:
\nDue to cutbacks, only six billets are available for drumming drummers. DoD is in the process of coordinating an RFP to obtain the six additional drummers by outsourcing. However, funds will not be available until FY 26.<\/p>\n

As a result of the above-mentioned programmatic delays, due to a high OPTEMPO that requires diversion of modernization funds to support current readiness, Christmas is hereby postponed until further notice.<\/p>\n

“Old NFO Retired”<\/a>, from social media courtesy of Moses Lambert.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Update, 29 December<\/strong>: Welcome, Instapundit<\/em> readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack<\/em> \u2013 https:\/\/substack.com\/@nicholasrusson<\/a> that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President signed an EO directing the Department of War to assist Santa with the Twelve Days of Xmas. Status of acquisitions follows: Day 1 – Partridge in a Pear Tree: The Army and Air Force are in the process of deciding whose area of responsibility Day 1 falls under. Since the partridge is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[57,5,41,13],"tags":[145,31,345,1463,30,463,514],"class_list":["post-93098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-military","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-airforce","tag-army","tag-christmas","tag-militaryprocurement","tag-navy","tag-parody","tag-usmc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-odA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93098"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100020,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93098\/revisions\/100020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}