Every once in awhile, we stumble across something that makes a light bulb go off in our head. “Aha!” we say. “We knew it!”
The latest such illumination comes from a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ …
Procurement
Iraq: At Least $6 Billion Gone Missing Due To Overlooked Oversight
Now that the U.S. military has left Iraq, it’s time to tally how much the nation wasted putting it back together. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, bluntly calls it a “disorganized American …
Godspeed, Mr. Withington
The last man present at the birth of the Air Force’s B-52 – which, God bless the BUFF, is still flying real-world missions nearly 60 years after its first flight – has died at 94. Not only did Holden Withington help create …
A Close Shave in Afghanistan
Friday’s roster of federal business opportunities includes this urgent request:
THIS RFQ [Request for Proposal] IS FOR 15,000 11oz cans, or larger, of aerosol foam shaving cream to be expedite shipped to Afghanistan.
Last …
$7,980,912
Super Committee Failure Hits Military Hard
Politicians can shrug off the congressional Super Committee’s failure to agree on meaningful deficit reduction. To them, it’s just another budget gimmick that didn’t pan out. But for the U.S. military, the Super Committee …
$27 a Gallon: Fueling the Navy’s Great Green(back) Fleet
The Navy – along with its newest ally, the Agriculture Department – announced Monday that they are purchasing nearly a half-million gallons of biofuels for an air-sea military exercise next summer. “Our use of fossil fuels …
Watching SEAL Team 6
New, Improved Marine Targets
Targets have long been a low-tech item in the military’s hardware account. But that may soon be changing: the Marines are now testing life-size moving targets – mounted on Segway scooters – so its riflemen can practice against something more realistic. Bonus: once hit, the dummy falls down, as in this screen grab. Check out a …
Mac Attack
Apple computers tend to cost a good deal more than their PC counterparts. But when duty calls, the Army salutes. That’s why it recently issued a so-called Simplified Acquisition Justification for Restrictive Competition. You parents of whiny teen-agers know the drill: “Macs are the only cool computer there is,” the youngster …
Your Crunchy Military
Warbirds: Dark or Light?
There is a rough correlation between the number of U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the number of turkeys sent there annually to help them celebrate Thanksgiving. Your Battleland math whiz has stuffed data provided by the Defense Logistics Agency’s troop support folks into his abacus to generate this chart and can …
Missile Defense: The Sky Continues To Fall…
Many mornings you can hear Boeing boasting over the Washington airwaves about how its ground-based missile system is protecting the United States. From what? There is no nation primed to attack the U.S. with I.C.B.M.s — or even close to it — in any military significant way. Yet we’re spending billions of dollars annually against …