Logistics and GI Joe

The Missus and the Sprout and I went to see G.I. Joe at the local 22 plex Saturday evening. For oldsters like me, G.I Joe evokes the Barbie doll sized soldier from the early 60s who was dressed for various wars and various armies from around the world. A friend of mine had some of the dolls and although I thought they looked pretty cool I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to play with them. They were too much like Barbie dolls for my taste. A decade later G.I. Joe starred in a TV animated adventure show which somehow I missed. Now it is a megabucks adventure spectacular movie so off we went to see it. As these type of movies go it wasn't bad; in fact it held my attention and I didn't nod off in the middle of it so I guess it got the Grouch seal of approval.

These type of movies inevitably have a secret base where all sorts of mayhem is planned and attacks are launched from. This movie had two secret bases, one in the Egyptian desert and one under the Artic ice. These places were as big as a suburban shopping mall. They had aircraft, water craft, subs, trucks, guns, ammo, people, training pools big enough to drive subs around in them, people coming and going...there was a lot of activity. I've been in the logistics field for some time when I see things like this I don't think "Wow, look at all that cool action gear!" No, I think "How the heck to they keep this place supplied?" The volume of consumables, repair parts, folks going on leave and returning, replacements, headquarters weenies... the sheer scale of keeping a secret base running like this would call for 24 hour convoys running 7 days a week. Besides the supply convoys the secret bases need a manufacturing support network to construct all of the gee-whiz aircraft, guns, uniforms, subs, etc. With all of that comes parts, manuals, upgrades, factory tech reps - the works. Now, all of that stuff is coming and going, contracts being let, meetings held - It's pretty hard to have a secret organization with a secret base the size of the Mall of America with all of this hullabaloo. And of course this stream is converging on the Egyptian desert and the Artic. Kind of conspicuous? I've thought that the best place to have your secret base would be in downtown Chicago or New York. Say a couple city blocks wide and 10 levels down. There is always construction going on anyway so no one would blink at a secret base being constructed there . You can have multiple entrances and exits so your super commandos could leave the facility, jump on a cross town bus and be out of the area in a jiffy. Your supplies can be delivered by a network of little Isuzu trucks with various company logos on them - no one would suspect a thing. Say...maybe this is why the downtown areas are always being torn up and rebuilt!

One other thing I noticed in this movie - the G.I. Joe uniform regulations seem to specify that the female soldier's uniforms are made without the top three buttons on the shirt, and hair must be worn longer than shoulder length and loose, whether or not it gets in the way of fighting the enemy Ninjas. Strangely enough the bad guy army had the same regs for their female soldiers too! How about that?