THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604280043
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: The Military goes into Business
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
Just about any veteran can recollect those 3 a.m. wakeup calls for KP duty years ago. Sometimes it was 2 in the morning, depending on the cook's temperament.
Formally called ``kitchen police,'' the duty didn't last long - just a few days - but it seemed like an eternity.
Troops cleaned grease traps, cleared dining tables, scrubbed pots and pans, stacked dishes and mopped the floor. They peeled potatoes and onions by the bag full, filled the milk machines and topped off the salt and pepper shakers.
It was an indoctrination to military life that most never will forget as they sweated through basic training. It was what made ``Sad Sack'' cartoons.
For the privates, it was pure drudgery. Today, the ``privatization'' of KP has made a difference.
KP duty has about gone away.
Instead, civilian contractors are hired to cook the meals, clean the buildings and mop the floors in some services.
A GI's time is better spent training to fight, or learning repairs, administration duties, or other more military matters, according to the Pentagon's leadership.
The move toward commercial support or commercially financed facilities operated by the private sector is more than 25 years old. What's new is the emphasis: Deputy Secretary of Defense John P. White said earlier this month the military is making privatizing, or outsourcing, its No. 1 priority in its quest to find money as its budgets shrink.
``We are looking to the private sector to provide us with a whole array of goods and services that are now done inside the Department of Defense,'' White said.
The military is looking for ways to reduce overhead and expenses, both in money it gets from taxpayers and that which it raises from the sales of movie tickets at base theaters, golf courses and clubs.
Janitorial services, transportation systems such as buses, building and maintenance, and ordering supplies have been handled bycivilians for years at some bases.
The Pentagon estimates that outsourcing saves an average of $1.5 billion annually, according to cost comparisons conducted between 1978 and 1994 involving more than 2,000 competitive contracts.
Switching KP duties to civilians may not work with every military branch, or at all bases, but it is growing.
Of six Army dining facilities at Fort Eustis in Newport News, two are military operated with civilians doing the KP, one is fully civilian contracted and three have civilian cooks with military KPs.
Other service branches, such as the Navy and Air Force, still retain their cooks while on deployment. The Navy uses its sailors - called Mess Management Specialists - to prepare meals aboard ship. During Navy ``Boot Camp,'' recruits are still required to spend time in the kitchens. The Navy's main galley at the Norfolk Naval Station retains military cooks because it is a teaching facility for sailors needed to cook aboard ship.
Air Force squadron personnel at Langley in Hampton say they cook at home and in the field. The cooks went with them on their current deployment to Jordan, saying they are deployed around the world so often that it's best to stay with what works for them.
In Bosnia, at NATO's main base outside Tuzla, local Bosnian men and women are hired to prepare food for the soldiers living near Eagle Base, the headquarters for operations in that country. They are overseen by a sergeant or two. But basically, GIs don't perform KP, even in war-torn Bosnia.
While the Navy may be keeping its kitchens, it's out of the movie business.
In Norfolk, the Navy took the lead nearly four years ago to lure a private movie house operator to just outside its main gate. Located at the main exchange complex, the Main Gate Theater shows first-run movies in its 10 theaters, giving discounts to the military and dependents and charging a higher fee to civilians.
Such an arrangement saved the Navy not only the maintenance of a movie house on its base, but also the electricity, salaries, retirement, hospital benefits and a host of other costs involved in the operations of such a facility.
``It is a win-win situation,'' said Rear Adm. Robert C. Cole, commander of the Norfolk Naval Base complex, who is looking at similar ventures for his Hampton Roads naval installations.
The city gets the tax revenue from the sale of movie tickets, the operator gets a prime location for patrons and the sailor enjoys a modern facility near his ship or barracks.
At Fort Benning, Ga., a similar movie house will be in place by the end of the year. Private companies are operating lodging facilities, dining clubs, storage lockers, child-care centers, recreation areas and golf courses at places such as Fort Jackson, S.C., Ingleside Naval Station, Texas, and Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
The main criteria, White said, it to generate savings, sustain readiness and improve quality and efficiency.
``We will not do things . . . which we consider core; that is, activities that the military considers to be central to the mission and there would be too much risk if we were to ask the private sector to do it,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: MIKE HEFFNER/The Virginian-Pilot
About four years ago the Navy lured a private movie house operator
to locate just outside its main gate. The Main Gate Theater saves
the Navy not only the maintenance of a movie house on its base, but
also the electricity, salaries, retirement, hospital benefits and a
host of other costs involved in the operations of such a facility.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BUSINESS CIVILIAN CONTRACT OUTSOURCING by CNB