One of my themes is the contrast between the roles of "little a" army and "big A" Army, and how Finnegan transitions from the one to the other.
The army is the one you see in war movies. The military calls those that actually do the fighting "Warfighters", a definition that would seemingly be appropriate but is used exclusively by the way too many people that call themselves warfighters when their battlefield consists of nothing more than their desktop. If you have to call yourself a warfighter, you're not.
I like my definition better: If you wear a bayonet to work, you're a warfighter. And a member of the army.
On the other hand, the Army is a huge monstrosity consisting of relatively few uniformed soldiers, many more Army civilians and many, many more contractors. For reference, the federal government spends about a bazillion dollars every year on the army. The Army costs us several gazillion dollars a year. (The mathematical construct: 1 $Gazillion >>>1$Bazillion.)
The Army's role is to provide the direction, resources, material, materiel, manpower, strategy and doctrine the army needs to perform its missions. And lots of things it doesn't need.
It may surprise you (but I don't know why), but the federal government, including the soldiers and civilians that make up the Army, don't do any work. By the way, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine the members of Congress actually building a road; after 70 years we'd have about 200 yards of crooked1-, 2- and 6 lane road and a bridge to nowhere. Which we have anyway.
That's where the contractors come in. They do the work. The process by which the Army defines what it wants, hires contractors and directs their work is what a good part of this book is about. How can that not be funny?
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