98th ASG projects on hold while fates of bases in Europe decided

[lebkuchen]

The Würzburg-based 98th Area Support Group has put a hold on nearly $270 million worth of future construction projects until the Department of Defense decides the fate of U.S. bases in Europe, ASG officials said last week.

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Seventeen of the projects would upgrade single-soldier barracks so that each soldier could live in his or her own room with a shared bathroom and kitchen. In 1996 (note: the Clinton Administration), the Army launched a $9 billion program to upgrade its old-fashioned dormitory-style barracks to the new style — which DOD calls “one-plus-one” — by 2008. In surveys, soldiers placed solo rooms near the top of their quality-of-life wish list.

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As part of the transformation Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, head of the U.S. European Command, said he wants to close some bases in Western Europe and transfer forces back to the United States or to still-unbuilt outposts in Eastern Europe and Africa.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=19472


Comment: The Bushies are moving as fast as they can to get Halliburton et al those building contracts in Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania, where the land is littered with unexploded ordinance and contaminated waste left over from the days of Soviet occupation. Army tours in these countries will be unaccompanied.

Don't look to these Eastern bloc countries to be chipping in much money, America. Your tax dollars will be paying for these new bases, despite the fact that the US owns its bases in Germany!

A Germany tour was a terrific incentive for enlistments/reenlistments. The only draw Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania will have is prostitutes, and lots of them.