The Marine Corp and getting things done, or what is your tooth-to-tail ratio?

Rivalry between the military services aside, there are a differences that can be discussed objectively. Perhaps one of the most important is the tooth-to-tail ratio. Simply put, this is the number of shooters that a unit has divided by the number of people that it takes to keep the shooters in the field.

Think about this for a minute, how many people does it take to feed, clothe, house, supply clean water, distribute ammunition and provide communication infrastructure (tail) to keep those persons in the military that do the shooting (teeth) going? In the US Army it seems that there are about 10 support people for every shooter. The Marine Corp has far fewer support people for every shooter.

I have been thinking about the tooth-to-tail ratio during the moving process. How many hours of transactions costs and other maintenance tasks am I doing for every hour I am putting towards the good? I think that I am certainly doing better that the Army's ratio, but not by as much as I'd like.

Some tasks in life just have to get done. I think there is more optional stuff that we throw in than we realize. What is your core required achievement? (hard question, but odds are its that thing you are putting off doing this very instant) How many hours did you spend fruitfully working towards? Its high time I spent more hours living.