This will get you to Walmart.

[datngrizz]

Finster - Basically when the Directive says civilians it is saying civil servants...i.e., government employees who serve at the pleasure of the government. They have always had the duty for domestic national security as a job description. It just says formally now what has been a fact that these civilians may now be tasked to help "Win the Peace" or restore "normal" operations in host nations (or here after events like Katrina) after conflict or natural disaster. What has changed...Nothing really. I was a civil servant in the past and even in the 60s and 70s we were asked (not ordered) to help OCONUS depending on our subject matter expertise. We were not trained in military ops (although many of us were ex military). That will stay status quo. SMEs/civilians will be given enough training to operate in the host nation much like our current State Department employees are given before they deploy to Embassies. They will not be expected to bear arms only impart their expertise.

Personally, I think this is a good/great idea. For decades our military has been expected to break things and kill people better than anyone else in the world (and done a fine job of it) then in an instant fix it and get things back to some form of normalcy. They have had SOME training (units like the Green Berets, SeaBees, Corps of Eng etc) but by and large they worked in a vacuum without the the help of SMEs. As the world and the intrinsic systems required for a nation to function got more Hi Tech and sophisticated the ability of the military to restore peacetime ops has fallen behind. Generals from Petraus on back have asked for something like this for decades. Now they will get it.