
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 5, 1990                   TAG: 9003052289
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NOT ALL MILITARY INVENTORIES WASTEFUL

GENERALLY, I applaud editorials critical of military procurement waste and extravagance. God knows there is enough of it. I think the Feb. 19 editorial was well-reasoned, but the subject is a complicated one, and I offer a little constructive criticism.

In the editorial, five of the seven bulleted items offered clear evidence of waste or mismanagement. Two will not pass muster.

For instance, having a 50-year supply of some things is not necessarily bad, unless the items in question are perishable or are things that can become obsolete. Fifty-year-old hand tools, some office supplies, and thousands of other items in the huge inventory work just as well as new ones, and the original cost would be only a minute fraction of 1990 prices.

Likewise, if properly stored, Korean War-vintage field pants could be serviceable a century from now. The basic design has changed no more than Levi denims, but the current price would be astronomically higher.

Moreover, if a need arose, 150,000 pairs would be a drop in the bucket. To outfit a single field army of fewer than 10 divisions would require more than the specified number, with no spares at all. And such a requirement could develop overnight.

While we are beating swords into plowshares and other utilitarian articles, and while we are recouping dollars for the Treasury, we must remember we need to arm and equip a certain number of our sons and daughters, in order to protect the Treasury, along with other things we value. H. LANDON McALLISTER BLACKSBURG

by CNB