Starting in January, the Defense Commissary Agency will no longer sell magazines in its overseas stores. This policy affects all commissaries in Europe, the Pacific—Guam, Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea—and Puerto Rico, said DeCA officials Wednesday. “The decision to eliminate magazine sales overseas was not an easy one, but a decision that had to be made in our fiscally constrained environment,” said Chris Burns, DeCA director of sales. Rising costs in transportation and declining sales influenced this decision, he noted. Magazines will still be available in military exchanges and bookstores located near most overseas commissaries, according to DeCA. Further, since Stars & Stripes is printed in theater, the commissaries will still sell this newspaper, said the officials. (Fort Lee report by Leslie Brown)
After years of serving as the bill-payer for other Pentagon priorities, munitions stockpiles are poised to get a major boost from the $150 billion reconciliation package unveiled by lawmakers in Congress this week, along with the defense industrial base to...