On a related note, here’s the highlights of an editorial from today’s Army Times :

Commissaries and the Defense Department?s stateside schools are in the crosshairs of Pentagon budget cutters, and military advocates, families and even base commanders are up in arms.

Defense officials notified the services in mid-October that they intend to close 19 commissaries and may close 19 more, mostly in remote areas.

At the same time, the Pentagon is finishing a study to determine whether to close or transfer control of the 58 schools it operates on 14 military installations in the continental United States.
. . .
?As Marines, we take the short end of the stick in many ways,? said Col. James Lowe, commander of Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. ?But when it comes to our children, we?re very intolerant about them being shortchanged.?
. . .
?How can leadership be talking about cutting back on quality-of-life benefits right now when the force and everyone supporting the force is at such a high stress level?? Raezer said.

The week the commissary cuts became known, 11 soldiers were killed in Iraq, and as many as 30 failed to show up on schedule for return flights to Baghdad at the end of their two-week R&R visits.

?Betrayal ? write that down and put it in your report,? said Col. John Kidd, garrison commander of Fort Stewart, Ga., testifying at Tafoya?s forum on the need to keep military-run schools on his post. ?As a commander, I will fight this tooth and nail. Folks down there are not just militant on this issue. They will march on Washington.?

Which all brings me back to The Onion’s brilliant parody of Bush’s aircraft carrier photo-op : Bush Visits U.S.S. Truman For Dramatic Veterans’-Benefits-Cutting Ceremony