Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993 TAG: 9301200031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN DEFENSE OF BREAST PUMPS
We journalists are a proud lot, but as I share with you this tale of military breast pumps, let me first admit that my work here is shoddy and incomplete.I hope you will find room in your breasts to forgive me.
There is in Roanoke a businessperson of high rank who reads surplus-goods catalogs printed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Occasionally, he stumbles on some surplus property or another that will actually help his business. More often than not, he just marvels at what the federal government has managed to accumulate. Aircraft carriers, train cars and jet planes are sold through these sales catalogs.
This businessperson - whom I have agreed not to identify in exchange for the right to freely demean - recently pointed out to me that the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service was selling 3,836 hand-operated plastic breast pumps.
A breast pump is a device which pumps the breast, usually a woman's, for the express purpose of extracting actual breast milk which can then be fed to an infant while mother (and her breasts) are not nearby.
These breast pumps originally cost the military $102,497 but are now stored on 28 pallets at a depot in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
The post-Cold War Defense Department, confident it doesn't need 3,836 breast pumps, now wants to sell them to the highest bidder, and is scheduled to open the bids on Thursday.
It's one of the first serious initiatives of the Clinton administration.
Because I was egged on by a Roanoke businessperson who felt silly inquiring, I tried to learn more about the pumps. Why are they unneeded? Is there some new technology that could spare breast-feeding civilian women the discomfort of dealing with the traditional breast pump?
The Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service in Memphis, Tenn., which put out the catalog, referred me to the Mechanicsburg, Pa., depot.
The depot suggested I inquire at the Defense Department in Battle Creek, Mich.
There, Phil Stewart said the breast pumps, like all surplus goods, had been offered through a computer network to all military branches, all federal agencies and many charitable organizations.
But nobody needed the breast pumps and Stewart didn't know where they were from. He suggested a call to the New Cumberland Army Depot in Pennsylvania. This is adjacent to the Mechanicsburg Depot.
New Cumberland deflected questions about the breast pumps to the Defense Personnel Support Department in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia suggested this chase could be ended with a call, logically, to New Cumberland.
A quick check with Phil Stewart, our long-lost contact in Battle Creek, says it's moot: There's been an error and the breast pumps have been pulled from the auction block.
There are 3,836 crates of breast pumps, each filled with a dozen pumps. We really have 46,032 breast pumps to sell. In fair condition.
The investigation half-complete, the long-distance phone bill mounting, I've suspended my inquiries.
The U.S. Department of Defense has 46,032 breast pumps it does not want. That much, at least, we know.