DoD Requests Plan to Close Stateside Commissaries

[opsspec1991]

DoD Requests Plan to Close Stateside Commissaries

By: Tom Philpott
Tasked by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to find ways to preserve force readiness amid sharply falling budgets, his comptroller and the Joint Staff have asked the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) for a plan to close all stateside base grocery stores, say military resale community sources.

Time will tell if this is just the loudest warning shot yet fired by a department desperate for budget relief, or if stateside commissaries, still enormously popular with military families and retirees, are viewed by current military leaders as a costly relic burdening a financially stressed force.

Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale, the department's top financial adviser, and Air Force Lt. Gen. Mark F. Ramsay, director of force structure, resources and assessment for the Joint Staff, reportedly requested the plan in a meeting with military personnel policy and commissary officials.

It was to be briefed soon to Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Adm. Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Read More:
DoD Requests Plan to Close Stateside Commissaries | Military.com

 

[kwimby]

Apparently a new long range bomber is higher priority than feeding the troops.

 

[dcselby1]

And on top of cutting the commissary, they want GI's to accept reduced salaries? Seems like they would make a LOT more policing the damned fraud in the purchasing system.