I am not puzzled at all by that happening Sheriff as historically our armed forces have been run by idiots in braid who know little about what goes in in the front line. In other words it is quite normal for the right hand not to know what the left hand is doing in the armed forces.
Trying hard NOT to be political about this - and failing - I think that as most of the drive in the modern army comes from cost or from saving costs I think that the big-wigs in government and at the top in the armed forces are running about like chickens with their heads cut off as they try to keep our military standards high while spending less and less on them.
There is no doubt that the Terries are cheaper than the regulars to keep on a string and that is why we are seeing trained soldiers getting made "redundant"-strewth..... at one end and the numbers of the territorial army being increased at the tuther end.
Oh, and as has already been said..... "even young recruits to the regulars are cheaper than keeping highly-trained and highly-paid regulars in the service. If they get their way we are going to finish up with a much smaller army, navy and airforce and they are going to be manned/womanned by cheapo young regulars or by part-timers".