Last updated 30 October 2003
Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1993
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Support Services
Morale, Welfare, and Recreation
Congressional and DOD guidance to improve oversight of the use of nonappropriated funds (NAF) for morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) resulted in the establishment of an MWR Board of Directors (BOD) during the fiscal year. Responsible to the Secretary of the Army, the BOD exercised oversight of NA F, including strategies to invest the funds, and reviewed MWR operations and family programs. The board also developed long-term resource strategies and operational initiatives and emphasized accountability and stewardship of both appropriated and NAF programs. Scheduled to meet biannually, the BOD consists of the four-star MACOM commanders and the USARPAC commander and is supported by an executive committee chaired by the DCSPER. Other committee members include MACOM chiefs of staff, the Chief of Engineers, the ACSIM, the Sergeant Major of the Army, a representative from a small MACOM, and a representative of retirees. Three functional committees-strategic planning, finance, and audit-support the executive committee.
During the fiscal year the Board of Directors provided leadership and sound business insight for MWR programs, helping the Army drive down excessive overhead costs in NAF programs. The board also furnished consistent guidance to the field, centralized control of major NAF construction projects, and introduced new management standards into MWR programs. These initiatives included a Nonappropriated Fund Management Trainee Program to help build a trained and motivated MWR workforce and a standardized patron survey program to highlight customer desires and identify deficiencies in MWR programs and facilities. In response to the increased number of overseas military operations, the Board of Directors designated MWR as mission-essential for deploying forces and created deployable civilian recreation specialists. The board also provided commanders with clear and specific objectives in meeting the newly created operational and financial standards for MWR programs.
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In FY 1993 the Army Family Action Plan annual conference determined that retention of commissary benefits, erosion of health care benefits, stateside cost of living allowances, equitable child-care fees for low income soldiers, and transfer of GI Bill benefits were the most critical quality-of-life issues facing the Army. Conference delegates reviewed eighty-six issues relating to benefits erosion, downsizing and transition, reserve component mobilization, family support, entitlements, employment opportunities and benefits, medical concerns, and youth education. The delegates set priorities for and sent to the CSA twenty-six issues for DOD and Army Staff action.
Army troop reductions and facility consolidations reduced the number of worldwide dining facilities at the end of the fiscal year to 475, a decline of 119 facilities from FY 1992. By the end of FY 1993, the Army completed fielding of the Army's Food Management Information System (AFMIS) at forty-three installations, resulting in reductions in food service personnel. AFMIS automates subsistence requisitioning, inventory management, food production, and food adviser management reports. The planned evaluation of a multimedia, multifunctional identification card for automating dining facilities headcount data during the fiscal year was postponed until the final quarter of FY 1994.
During FY 1993 the Army tested and evaluated an à la carte meal service for the troop dining facilities at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The à la carte meal service priced each menu item individually, making point-of-sale cash registers an integral part of this type of meal service. The Army's interest in an à la carte food service, a private sector business practice, grew as Army hospitals successfully implemented the new method during ongoing experiments. In adopting more private sector business practices to reduce subsistence expenses, the Army joined the other services and the Defense Logistics Agency in planning a demonstration, scheduled for FY 1995, of commercial vendor distribution of subsistence items directly to the dining facilities.
The Army Medical Department (AMEDD) faced a period of great change in FY 1993. Troop downsizing and base closures affected TOE medical units at CONUS installations, such as Fort Ord's 8th Evacuation Hospital, which was inactivated in September. In Europe, the AMEDD changed to support a much smaller force structure that was scheduled to decline to about 65,000 troops and their families. The AMEDD closed
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many of USAREUR's local medical activities and clinics and inactivated many hospitals that had operated in Europe for decades. Some hospitals were replaced with combat support hospitals that were designed to be more mobile and deployable, two important features in USAREUR's post-Cold War outlook. In addition to the turbulence of downsizing, the AMEDD was in the midst of Medical Force 2000 (MF2K), a reorganization developed to restructure field medical support and correct the mobility and other problems experienced during the Persian Gulf War.
During the fiscal year medical planners were concerned about the mobility of the sixty-bed mobile Army surgical hospitals (MASH) in the force structure. Beginning in late FY 1992, AMEDD tested the thirty-bed MASH and examined its mobility and medical capabilities. Evaluation reports issued in June 1993 found problems with the thirty-bed concept. In September the commander of the AMEDD Center and School recommended to the Army's Surgeon General that forward surgical teams (FST), small, highly mobile units that could perform surgery close to the front, replace MASHs in the force structure, based on the conclusion that this change was necessary to support the new power-projection Army.
The AMEDD also decided to reduce the number and variety of its TOE hospitals. In December 1992, as part of its move to eliminate large evacuation hospitals from the force structure, Fort Hood's 21st Evacuation Hospital was officially reorganized and redesignated as the 21st Combat Support Hospital, matching the similar activations of combat support hospitals in Europe during the fiscal year. As part of AMEDD's ongoing effort to improve the mobility and deployability of its TOE hospitals, the department began another study to test the capabilities of the MF2K combat support hospital. The AMEDD selected the 10th Surgical Hospital, Fort Carson, Colorado, for evaluation. During the first quarter of FY 1993, the Army reorganized and redesignated the unit as the 10th Combat Support Hospital. The multiyear study was scheduled to last until 1995 and would test the unit's mobility and clinical abilities through a series of exercises and evaluations.
In FY 1993 the Army continued to implement the BRAC process that mandated realigning three medical research and development facilities from the Letterman Army Institute of Research (LAIR), located at the Presidio of San Francisco, California. During the fiscal year the LAIR Blood Research Division, located with the Naval Medical Research Institute at the Gillette Building in Rockville, Maryland, became a detachment of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Washington, D.C. The LAIR Military Trauma Research facility was realigned with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The LAIR Ocular Hazards Research facility relocated to Brooks Air Force Base, Texas. During the fiscal year BRAC also closed
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the Institute of Dental Research, which became a detachment under WRAIR.
Investigators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease, Fort Detrick, Maryland, participated in the isolation and identification of the etiologic agent responsible for the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome that initially occurred in young Navajo Indians in the southwestern United States. The Army contributed to the national effort to counter this public health threat by maintaining a surveillance program. During the fiscal year institute scientists also completed safety and efficacy trials in animals of a candidate Korean Hemorrhagic Fever vaccine and received regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration to begin clinical trials of the vaccine in human volunteers.
In FY 1993 Army investigators from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and its overseas laboratories initiated a large-scale field trial of a vaccine directed against falciparum malaria, the most lethal form of malaria. The original test population numbered more than 1,200 volunteers from Burmese refugee camps in the northwest corner of Thailand. A preliminary test of the antibiotic azithromycin demonstrated that it protected 75 percent of the volunteers from infection when exposed to falciparum malaria. More extensive clinical trials are planned to satisfy the safety and efficacy requirements of the Food and Drug Administration for product licensure.
During the fiscal year the Army developed a three-week suspended release formulation for a microencapsulated cephazolin antibiotic. The Army expects that the development of biodegradable microencapsulated antibiotics will help control debilitating osteomyelitis (bone infection) resulting from combat wounds, in addition to improving the quality of life for injured soldiers and reducing care costs. Further studies are expected to be performed to develop formulations that provide four- to six-week release of cephazolin and tobramycin antibiotics and to demonstrate their efficacy and safety in animals. These products are expected to be developed as a complement to microencapsulated ampicillin, which is currently in development.
Botulinum toxin is a lethal toxic protein substance. During FY 1993 laboratories of the U.S. Army Medical Research, Development, Acquisition, and Logistics Command (Provisional) utilized biotechnology to produce a nontoxic, new generation botulinum toxin vaccine, since the present vaccine, which is in short supply, is manufactured using old technology. The genetically engineered products are expected to be absolutely safe, since they are nontoxic, unlike the current vaccine, which is made from a lethal toxin inactivated by chemical means. Indications are that gene products would be more effective than the inactivated toxin. Preliminary studies in animals showed that the cloned product was effec-
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tive in preventing illness and death from two types of toxin. The new vaccine is expected to be much less costly to prepare, since it is made from nontoxic material and does not require special facilities for production.
Fibrin, a protein in blood plasma, is formulated to be used as a hemostatic agent to stop the flow of blood. Severe blood loss is a major cause of death on the battlefield, and fibrin glues offer an opportunity to prevent a significant number of deaths. Fibrin glues have the potential to be used by soldiers to improve the control of extremity bleeding for wounded awaiting evacuation from a forward portion of the battlefield to medical treatment facilities. During FY 1993 the Army developed a model for uncontrolled extremity hemorrhage and used the model to conduct proof-of-concept testing for fibrin glues as local hemostatic agents. The model is expected to be used as a reference tool for other studies of resuscitation.
Toxic conditions resulting from local infections are a major complication of burn wounds and can also lead to incapacitation and evacuation of soldiers after relatively minor trauma. Improved wound dressings have the potential to reduce hospital costs, improve patients' quality of life, and keep soldiers on the battlefield. Silver nylon dressings have been demonstrated to promote healing of donor site wounds and provide greater patient comfort. In FY 1993 the Army planned further development of silver nylon dressings for burn care and continued to explore the potential of silver nylon for treatment of ballistics wounds.
In FY 1993 the Army continued production of experimental batches of stroma free hemoglobin (remains of red blood cell membranes) in searching for a blood substitute that would allow oxygen-carrying resuscitation fluids to be administered where logistics considerations largely preclude the use of fresh or freeze-thawed refrigerated blood products. Army hemoglobin (oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells) production permits investigations of the efficacy and toxicity of candidate blood substitutes by independent academic researchers unhindered by restrictions on information exchange that have been imposed by commercial blood substitute developers. The National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration deemed such investigations crucial to ensuring that issues of safety and efficacy with these products are comprehensively addressed in a timely manner. The Army's stroma free hemoglobin is expected to be provided to qualified academic researchers with proposals relevant to Army requirements as well as to U.S. Navy investigators to facilitate their efforts in developing an alternative blood substitute material.
Army efforts directed at chemical defense made significant advances during the fiscal year. Army researchers identified a new approach to reducing nerve agent casualties through the use of bioengineered scavenger molecules based on naturally occurring enzymes. Researchers
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demonstrated protection against nerve agents using scavengers. In vivo protection against the nerve agent Soman was demonstrated following administration of three naturally occurring enzymes-carboxylesterase, cholinesterase, and somanase. The Army expects that this approach may lead to the development of exogenous enzyme-based scavengers effective against nerve agent exposure. Scientists also developed methods, expected to be adopted in several years, for detecting chemical warfare agents in samples taken from casualties.
Researchers made substantial progress in developing medical countermeasures against vesicant (blistering) agents. Army researchers completed work on a pretreatment against expected battlefield concentrations of cyanide. The Army performed toxicity and efficacy assessments of two pretreatments for cyanide methemoglobin formers (the agents that cause the body to form methemoglobin). These pretreatments are expected to be relatively free of undesirable effects on soldiers' performance.
Researchers mutated human enzymes to probe for active sites of nerve agents. Specific site-directed mutations of human enzymes attacked by nerve agents were produced to probe for the active site of inhibition by these agents. The goal of this research is to develop catalytic enzymes that will destroy nerve agents without being inactivated themselves.
Army researchers identified bacterial strains in soil that could metabolize nerve agents and may enable development of versatile decontaminants. Researchers determined that inhibitors of the enzyme PADPRP, which occurs in skin, protected against some effects of the vesicant chemical warfare (CW) agent sulfur mustard. This research may lead to an effective sulfur mustard countermeasure to prevent blister formation.
Researchers developed analytical methods for the detection of the vesicant agents sulfur mustard and lewisite; the G series nerve agents Soman, Sarin, and Tabun; and the nerve agent VX in biological samples. These methods may lead to field procedures for diagnostic, prognostic, and verification situations involving these chemical agents.
Army Unit Resiliency Analysis modeling demonstrated the impact on unit effectiveness of currently fielded medical countermeasures against nerve agents. Tested countermeasures included the anticholinergic atropine, the oxime 2-PAM, and the nerve agent pretreatment pyridostigmine. The modeling procedure indicated that major improvements in unit effectiveness are expected to result from fielding the next generation of medical countermeasures against CW agents, including Topical Skin Protectant, a barrier against CW agents, and the improved oxime HI-6.
The Army development of a topical skin protectant passed its first milestone of the in-process review and entered the demonstration and validation phase of development. This product is expected to significantly
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enhance the protection afforded by the current chemical protective ensemble by providing a nonirritating skin barrier against CW agents.
The Army continued development of the Nerve Agent Antidote System, HI-6, the next-generation oxime for use on nerve agent casualties. Preclinical toxicology, efficacy, and mutagenicity studies were conducted.
The Army held a Source Selection Board for the Multichambered Autoinjector. This product is expected to replace the two autoinjector Mark I nerve agent antidote kit with a single autoinjector that will speed the administration of life-saving antidotes for nerve agents to casualties in the field.
Army researchers also continued to make substantial progress in developing computerized performance assessment tools to measure the impact of environmental stressors on human performance. The Army developed eighteen new computerized performance tests that were useful in predicting significant decreases in performance under conditions that might prevail on a chemical battlefield. These tests became national and international standards for assessing the impacts of stressors on human performance.
During FY 1993 the Chaplain Branch continued to reduce its end strength. The number of Chaplain personnel serving in O-2 through O-6 positions declined from 1,420 to 1,321, with the majority of losses in the O-2 and O-3 grades.
The Chaplain School temporarily expanded during the fiscal year to provide an additional 122 Advanced Individual Training seats for MOS 71M, Chaplain Assistant. These graduates brought MOs 71M back to fully assigned strength, after a 17 percent cut in assigned chaplain assistants under the FY 1992 drawdown.
In March 1993 DOD nominated the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, for realignment to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process. The realignment was approved on 30 September 1993. In anticipation of the move, the Chaplain School and Fort Jackson agreed that a new building would have to be constructed to house the school at Fort Jackson.
Suicide prevention continued to be a major challenge for chaplains in FY 1993. The Army had eighty-four suicides during the fiscal year. Chaplains received suicide prevention training at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, during April. This marked the second suicide prevention course offered by the Chief of Chaplains and the first opened to other DOD chaplains. The course was attended by 99 chaplains and 38 chaplain assistants in active duty assignments; 9 reserve component, 1 Air Force,
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and 13 Navy chaplains also participated in the training. In August 82 active Army chaplains, 6 active Army chaplain assistants, 16 reserve component chaplains, 32 Navy chaplains, and 22 Air Force chaplains attended the first advanced course on family dynamics in suicide.
In FY 1993 the Army Sports Program fielded championship teams in men's and women's basketball, Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling, boxing, women's softball, and men's and women's track and field teams. Budget constraints and declining participation among active duty personnel led the Armed Forces Sports Committee to eliminate racquetball and tennis from the 1994 sports calendar.
In FY 1993 the Army General Library Program purchased 56,895 books, mainly for post libraries, at a cost of $1,566,516. As in previous years, only nonfiction books were purchased, with emphasis on procuring reference books for educational purposes. In another program, paperback book kits, mostly recreational in nature, were purchased and issued to support military personnel without access to a library. The Army purchased and distributed a total of 12,610 paperback book kits at a cost of $833,640. This figure represented an increase over the previous fiscal year, owing to the need to provide additional kits to support deployments in Somalia and Macedonia. Base closures and the Army drawdown resulted in the closure of eighteen main and fifty-five branch libraries. Where possible, materials and equipment were relocated to other Army libraries to augment or replace worn property. Most excess collections in Germany were turned over to the U.S. Information Agency for redistribution.
Army Casualty and Memorial Affairs
In FY 1993 there were 664 active duty deaths in the Army, a decrease from the previous fiscal year's total of 744. There were 192 Army family members who died while stationed overseas, a slight increase from the FY 1992 total of 188. The Army also suffered seventy-three casualties in support of the United Nations humanitarian relief effort in Somalia, including eight hostile and four nonhostile deaths. Elements of the 54th Quartermaster Company (Mortuary Affairs) handled remains departing from Somalia.
During the fiscal year the Army completed 1,949 line-of-duty investigations (LDI) and received 1,732 new cases. LDIs examine circumstances
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surrounding the death, injury, or illness of a soldier to establish whether the service member or family is entitled to benefits. FY 1993 LDIs included 586 death cases closed and 594 received; 688 Physical Evaluation Board cases closed and 667 received; 663 disease/injury cases closed and 464 received; and 12 Army Board for the Correction of Military Records cases closed and 7 received.
In FY 1993 the Army continued to improve its casualty reporting system. On 15 March 1993, the Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operations Center (CMAOC) implemented the Army Casualty Information Processing System (ACIPS). This system upgraded PERSCOM's casualty reporting and system management capabilities and allowed Casualty Area Commands and personnel units to access current casualty information. ACIPS provides the capability of receiving and automatically loading casualty reports sent via Autodin (Automated Defense Information Network) or DDN (Defense Data Network) from anywhere in the world. With the new system, PERSCOM's Casualty Operations Center can verify the relevant personal and military data in newly received casualty reports against information in the Total Army Personnel Data Base (TAPDB). If a casualty report lacks information, ACIPS can retrieve data from TAPDB. After ACIPS processes the data, PERSCOM coordinates the notification of the family members and their requests for assistance. ACIPS also tracks the movement of remains from the place of death to interment and supplies information on the method of identification and the condition and disposition of the remains.
The automated casualty system is invaluable to mortuary affairs personnel because of its capability to provide information on escorts, burial honors, memorialization requests, reimbursement of funeral or interment expenses, personal effects, line-of-duty investigations, and invitational travel orders. ACIPS contains missing persons data, including Army personnel unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. ACIPS also supports information exchanges with the casualty commands, the Personal Effects Depot, and the Mass Fatality Information Management System used by the Port of Entry Mortuaries at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, and Travis Air Force Base, California. PERSCOM developed an ACIPS (Light) as a software package designed to provide automation assistance for casualty reporting from personnel units deployed to the field. The software is a stand-alone application that operates on a laptop or desktop computer and can rapidly create casualty reports. The ACIPS (Light) is scheduled to be fielded early to Somalia, prior to the projected fielding date of May 1994. The XVIII Airborne Corps began ongoing tests for a new mass casualty module designed to substantially reduce the time required to enter data during mass casualty incidents.
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The National League of POW/MIA Families is the only officially recognized POW/MIA family advocacy group representing Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. Specialists from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center used the league's 24th annual national meeting on 16 and 17 July as an opportunity to collect deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) samples for a DNA repository from family members as a reference for comparison with recovered remains. About 275 DNA reference samples from families of approximately 150 unaccounted-for service members were collected through the league. The CMAOC POW/MIA Office provided family members the chance to review files on their missing relatives and arranged government-sponsored travel for POW/MIA family members to attend official briefings presented at the annual league meeting. The Army also provided representatives for two regional league events during the fiscal year.
In response to a request from the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in January 1992, DOD's Central Documentation Office (CDO) instructed the Army to forward all POW/MIA-related documents to the committee for review or to the Library of Congress for release to the public. The Army formed a 33-person team, Task Force 250, to review and process the material that had accumulated over the past twenty-five years. All relevant information was forwarded to the CDO by December 1992. The CDO instructed the services to conduct a final review of the POW/MIA material in September 1993, but no additional Army documents were provided. Approximately sixteen linear feet of Army records were being held in evidentiary custody by the FBI and the Army Criminal Investigation Command and could not be processed for public distribution until released back to the Army.
During the fiscal year the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), continued its mission to search for, recover, and identify the remains of unaccounted-for soldiers, primarily from World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The CILHI supports all services in the search for MIAs. In FY 1993 the CILHI sent out thirty-eight teams on recovery missions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, New Guinea, Armenia, and Guadalcanal. These missions represented more than 16,000 deployed man-days involving investigations and excavations. The agency's major focus was on the search for remains in Indochina under Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA). In Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, CILHI teams performed 764 investigations and 68 excavations in support of JTF-FA. Search and recovery missions, official repatriations, and third-party turnovers yielded 118 sets of remains that were sent to the CILHI for study and possible identification. Most of the
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remains were from the Vietnam War, with 54 from Vietnam, 8 from Laos, and 11 from Cambodia. In other major efforts, fifteen remains from World War II and twelve service members lost during the Cold War were recovered. North Korea provided seventeen remains from the Korean War. Although the North Koreans provided a list of twenty names associated with the remains, none have been identified due to the condition and commingling of the remains and a lack of recovery site information. CILHI personnel recommended 35 identifications among remains received before FY 1993: 31 from the Vietnam War, 3 from World War II, and 1 from peacetime Japan.
Operation RESTORE HOPE proved a big test for Army postal service during the fiscal year. The 711th Adjutant General (AG) Company (Postal) was activated for the operation as an active Army unit but was staffed entirely by Army reservists from across the country who volunteered to serve on temporary training for active duty (TTAD) status for 179 days. As a general support postal unit, the company received bulk mail from the Air Force's postal squadron in Mogadishu and sorted and delivered it to the 129th AG Company (Postal), which distributed the mail to individual units participating in the relief effort.
During FY 1993 the Army worked to resolve ongoing postal operation shortfalls. The Total Army Analysis 2001, which helped determine the Army's force structure, approved an increase in the number of active Army direct support postal units beginning in FY 1996. The new postal companies are planned to have a four-person headquarters element and to support two to six postal platoons. Each platoon of sixteen soldiers is expected to provide postal support for 6,000 troops. Under the new plan, in October 1995 FORSCOM is scheduled to activate the 175th AG Company (Postal) with two platoons and the 151st AG Company (Postal) with three platoons and assign them to I and III Corps, respectively. The XVIII Airborne Corps' 129th AG Company (Postal) is scheduled to be reorganized into four platoons.
Recent contingencies have reinforced the need for permanent, preassigned nine-digit Zip Codes and mail sorting by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) before packages leave CONUS. The USPS agreed to provide nine-digit sorting in CONUS, and this agreement helped in the development of the new postal TOE force structure during the fiscal year. At the beginning of Operation RESTORE HOPE, no methodology had been established for USPS sorting to the unit level, and an interim Zip Code assignment was developed. The Army Military Postal Service Agency developed a format that assigned a unique nine-digit Zip Code to each unit. The first
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five numbers of the Zip Code identified mail to the division level, and the four-digit suffix identified the package to the company level. This system offered the advantages of a universal indicator of a contingency deployment and a standardized number assignment, so that units and soldiers would know their overseas addresses before they deployed. The Zip Code remained the same no matter where the unit deployed, and the system allowed for future automation by the USPS. The USPS was able to provide the Army with 90 percent of the first-class letters already sorted to unit level before they left CONUS.
The Institute of Heraldry (TIOH) is a U.S. Army activity supporting the armed forces, the Executive Office of the President, and other federal agencies. During the fiscal year TIOH designed more than 307 distinctive shoulder sleeve insignia or coats of arms for Army units and ROTC schools. For example, TIOH designers developed new insignia for Army and Air Force Muslim chaplains. In addition, the agency prepared 328 designs for the Air Force and 21 coats of arms for new ships or shore activities belonging to the Navy and Coast Guard and sculpted several plaques or seals for DOD organizations. TIOH also supported non-DOD activities by designing a shoulder patch for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Law Enforcement Office and producing presidential and vice presidential plaques for the White House Logistics Office and the White House Communications Agency.
Army and Air Force Exchange Service
In FY 1993 the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) became the ninth largest retailer in the nation, reporting record sales of $7.7 billion (including concessionaire sales). AAFES profits added $212.3 million to Morale, Welfare, and Recreation activities funding, with $127.4 million of the total going to Army MWR funds. Beginning in February 1993, AAFES reorganized elements of its headquarters, establishing directorates in sales, store operations, logistics, and change management. To help modernize its business practices, AAFES created eight strategic business groups (SBG) under its Sales Directorate. Each SBG is designed to focus attention on specific aspects of AAFES business, such as main stores, food and theaters, military clothing, and direct marketing. Another significant organizational change was the April closure of the AAFES Norton Distribution Center at Riverside, California.
AAFES also had a busy year serving military personnel at home and on deployments overseas. In October 1992 USAREUR requested AAFES
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to support personnel from the 212th Surgical Hospital (Mobile Army) who were scheduled to deploy to Zagreb, Croatia, in the coming months. AAFES-Europe provided videotaped movies and imprest funds for 212th and other medical units sent to Zagreb during Operation PROVIDE PROMISE. In June 1993 AAFES began supporting Operation ABLE SENTRY, as a company from the 6th Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment, deployed to Macedonia. When U.S. troops began arriving in Somalia in December 1992 as part of Operation RESTORE HOPE, AAFES provided deploying Army units 20,000 U.S. flag patches and free sewing services as well as morale-lifting videotaped movies. AAFES also established a distribution point in Mogadishu and seven tactical field exchanges (TFE) in Somalia. Other TFEs were established to support Operation RESTORE HOPE personnel operating in Mombassa, Kenya, and Cairo, Egypt. Sales at these exchanges exceeded $5 million, and more than 1,200 tons of merchandise was sold.
The Army continued providing laundry services for soldiers under both garrison and field conditions during the fiscal year. The Army assisted the Joint Interservice Regional Support Group Number 10 in performing a regional garrison laundry services study focused on the East Coast. The purpose of the study was to determine if the efforts of the individual services could be combined to provide a more economical means of providing laundry service at military installations and Veterans Affairs facilities. The U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command, responsible for clothing and services, continued efforts to review current laundry facilities throughout the United States to determine how to improve and modernize laundry services and to ascertain which facilities could benefit the most from prompt attention. As a result, the Army altered the management of several laundry facilities during FY 1993. The laundry facility at Fort Eustis, Virginia, was converted in October 1992 from a government-owned, contractor-operated facility to one run by the Richmond Veterans Hospital through the negotiation of a memorandum of understanding between the Army and the Department of Veterans Affairs. As of 1 March 1993, Fort Bragg's laundry facility converted from a government-owned, contractor-operated to a contractor-owned, contractor-operated organization. A new laundry and dry cleaning facility for Fort Jackson, South Carolina, began operation on 2 August 1993 through a third-party contract. On 30 August 1993, the command completed a $1,650,000 project to procure new equipment and enlarge the laundry facility at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. During the fiscal year the command also coordinated with ten separate installations to redistribute forty pieces of excess laun-
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dry and dry cleaning equipment valued at more than $1 million. The U.S. Army Aviation and Troop Command also provided technical assistance on field laundry services to active Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard units through five on-site inspection visits carried out during the fiscal year.
During the fiscal year the U.S. Army Natick Research, Development, and Engineering Center tested and approved the concept of the Laundry Water Reuse System. The water reuse system is expected eventually to be added to the M85 trailer-mounted laundry to reduce water consumption. As part of the Force Provider system, Natick also completed the prototype of the Containerized Laundry System (CLS) using commercial equipment. Plans call for the CLS to provide a self-service laundry facility that can be used during contingencies and humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions. Looking toward the future, Natick worked on a project to revolutionize the way the Army launders clothing and individual equipment by initiating the development of the first prototype of the Laundry and Drycleaning System (LADS). A nonaqueous, closed-loop system, LADS is expected to clean and dry clothing in one system, thus eliminating the need for water and reducing manpower requirements in the field.
Construction, Facilities, and Real Property
Corps of Engineers (COE) military construction (MILCON) projects fall into several general programs, including Military Construction, Army (MCA); support to other DOD agencies; assistance for other federal, state, and local governments; and support to other nations. In FY 1993 there were forty projects in the MCA program, with a total value of $297 million. As of 30 September 1993, the COE had awarded only eight of these forty projects, programmed at $68 million (23 percent of the total program value). Several factors accounted for the delays. This fiscal year was the first in which a large number of projects was added to the MCA program by Congress during budget approval. These late additions delayed more than half of the programs, while high costs, environmental issues, and recertification due to Base Realignment and Closure decisions accounted for the remaining project holdups. The COE provided construction support to DOD agencies such as the Defense Logistics Agency and the National Security Agency and aided other DOD construction programs such as the Ballistic Missile Defense MILCON Program, the DOD Medical Program, the Pentagon Renovation Program, and the DOD School Program. At the beginning of the fiscal year, the COE forecast awarding 150 projects worth $867 million, but by the end of the year only 107 projects worth $739 million had been awarded. Forty-five of the awarded projects, with a programmed value of $387 million, were autho-
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rized and appropriated during the fiscal year, while the remainder had received prior appropriations. Some of the most prominent projects awarded in FY 1993 included the Armed Forces Recreation Center at Fort DeRussy, Hawaii ($87 million, approved FY 1991); a new heating and refrigeration plant at the Pentagon ($56 million, approved FY 1993); the DLA Operations Center in Columbus, Ohio ($89 million, approved FY 1992); and improvements at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas ($26 million, approved FY 1993).
During the fiscal year the COE spent $795 million under the Support for Others (SFO) Program, involving more than 1,200 work years of effort. The SFO Program assists other federal agencies; states, commonwealths, and territories; and local governments that lack the institutional technical expertise to meet their own engineering needs or that lack the staff to effectively manage similar work conducted by private contracting firms. COE personnel provide engineering, environmental, and construction management services to these customers, who have to fully fund its support efforts. Environmental work consumed 60 percent of the SFO effort. The largest single program, which involved emergency response assistance efforts, cost the COE more than $320 million. Natural disasters such as hurricanes and flooding required the COE to support Federal Emergency Management Agency relief programs in Arizona, California, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, New York, Illinois, Florida, Guam, and Hawaii. Another major effort involved the COE management of $300 million in work for the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program. Major construction management projects that supported other federal agencies during the fiscal year included the renovation of the General Accounting Office headquarters and a new campus for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Education and Training Center. The COE also conducted seismic vulnerability evaluations of approximately 170 Federal Aviation Administration control towers.
The COE International Activities Program (IAP), included under the Foreign Military Sales Program (managed for the Defense Security Assistance Agency), provided support for DOD and other U.S. civilian agencies overseas and support to foreign countries and international organizations that eventuated in strengthening U.S. firms. The IAP also included congressionally authorized activities along the nation's borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as cooperative science and technology exchanges with other countries and contracting for foreign manufactured equipment or research. Operating under guidelines similar to the SFO Program, the COE provided engineering, construction, and environmental support to customers on a reimbursable basis. The FY 1993 IAP program was valued at approximately $465 million. More than $400 million of this total supported the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program, and most of
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the remainder supported other U.S. agencies under the Economy Act. Under that act, the COE continued its international support of the U.S. Agency for International Development's recovery efforts to aid the Philippines after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The COE handled several security upgrades at U.S. Information Agency facilities; improvements at Voice of America radio transmission sites in Morocco, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Botswana, and Sao Tome; cold regions engineering projects in Antarctica and Greenland for the National Science Foundation; and aid to the Environmental Protection Agency by sending water and wastewater equipment to Poland. The COE also provided operations and maintenance support to the Pacific islands managed by the Department of the Interior and continued a project begun in FY 1992 of working on renovations of State Department office buildings that are scheduled to serve as U.S. embassies in Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and several other nations of the former Soviet Union.
Through the FMS Program, the COE during the fiscal year assisted thirty nations with eighty-one projects valued at $403 million. In twenty-one African nations, the African Civic Action Program involved thirty-two projects funded under the Foreign Military Financing Program (FMFP) and valued at $1 million. These COE efforts helped local engineers design and build facilities that benefited the host nation military and civilian populations, while other COE efforts sought to preserve wildlife and natural resources crucial to local economies. In Latin America the COE assisted in thirty-two FMFP-funded projects in six nations, valued at $17 million for the fiscal year. After the El Salvador peace settlement, the focus of the FMS Program in Latin America shifted from security assistance military infrastructure projects in El Salvador and Honduras to infrastructure construction for counternarcotics forces in Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador. The COE FMS efforts in the Middle East aided three nations and involved seventeen projects valued at $385 million. The COE continued to rebuild Kuwait's military infrastructure and provided additional infrastructure assistance to Saudi Arabia. The United States began a three-year, $300 million project to equip the Saudi Arabian National Guard with light armored vehicles (LAV) and implemented a four-year, $200 million program to supply Saudi Arabia with M1A2 tanks and a four-year, $500 million project to expand that nation's naval facilities. In Egypt, the COE FMFP efforts continued to center on the long-term modernization of air and naval facilities.
Other International Activities Program initiatives included the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program that the COE began supporting in FY 1993. The United States created this program to gain assurances from the nations of the former Soviet Union that they would dismantle their weapons of mass destruction. In return for their cooper-
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ation, the United States assisted with the disarmament effort. There is currently a long-term storage problem for the fissile material from dismantled nuclear weapons of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazahkstan. The lack of a safe and secure storage facility will delay the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) obligations for both the ratified START I and the pending START II. Until the obligations have been met, there is a risk that nuclear materials may fall under terrorist control. The United States and Russia wanted all nuclear warheads from the new republics dismantled and shipped to Russia for storage. Under the CTR Program the COE is helping with a fissile material storage facility constructed in Russia. At the close of FY 1993, the Ukraine and Belarus maintained nuclear weapons on their soil, and only Kazahkstan was nuclear free. Both Ukraine and Belarus maintained that they needed family housing for the retiring military officers before they would stand down the nuclear-equipped units and transfer the fissile material to Russian control. As a result, during the fiscal year the COE was engaged in constructing family housing in those countries so that disarmament could proceed. Since Russia also maintained the former Soviet Union's chemical munitions arsenal, in FY 1993 the COE also was engaged in designing and building a pilot plant to neutralize the chemical agents from the nerve agent munitions.
FY 1993 was a year of continuing change for COE facilities and real property. A significant organizational change occurred on 19 August 1993 when the COE Engineering and Housing Support Center reorganized and became the U.S. Army Center for Public Works (USACPW). Other major changes included the Army's total number of installations falling from 2,320 to 2,134 during the fiscal year as the Base Realignment and Closure Commission and the Facility Reduction Program continued to have an impact on the Army. The year's decrease in installations was dramatically reflected in the lowering of the Army's FY 1993 Plant Replacement Value (PRV), which was set at $162 billion. The PRV represented the cost to replace Army facilities, excluding land, and the FY 1993 figure was 4.6 percent, or $7.4 billion, less than that for the previous fiscal year. The transfer of former USAREUR communities to the German federal government accounted for the majority of the PRV reduction. Real Property Maintenance Activity expenditures for the year were $5.1 billion, which represented one of the single largest Army programs. This money was used to manage the Army's 44 major installations, 109 minor installations, and 1,981 other facilities. To help reduce expenses, the Army applied new procedures for managing contracts and controlling costs for miscellaneous services (pest control, trash collection, custodial support). New cost-saving energy programs, which reduced energy use by 17 percent, also improved efficiency.
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The cost of deferred maintenance and repair projects continued to pose a challenge for the Army in FY 1993. During the fiscal year the deferred costs increased by $30 million. A major portion of the Army's buildings were at least thirty-six years old and required escalating maintenance to prevent deterioration. In an effort to improve the tracking of facilities requirements, the USACPW helped develop and test the new Installation Status Report (ISR) at eleven CONUS installations. The ISR is intended to reduce inspections and better provide senior Army managers with an evaluation of facilities.
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Last updated 30 October 2003
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