[Milsurplus] Pentagon Junking Millions in Gear

[James Duffer]

DOD is not the only outfit that declares an item surplus, disposes of it, 
and then has to accquire the items again.

A three letter agency developed an antenna for their enroute secondary 
radars that were colocated with the primary radars, this antenna was called 
NADIF with the directional portion mounted on the primary radar feed horn.  
This antenna replaced the older "hog trough" antenna which was mounted on 
top of the sail (reflector).  The other part of the antenna system was the 
omni radiator which was developed much earlier.  The NADIF omni was built 
and placed in the agency's depot to be used when the directional portion and 
would be shipped when the directional was built.  Well, as you know there 
are bean counters who ultimately run things and they had set up a procedure 
if an item wasn't called for over a certain period it would be excessed and 
declared surplus.  When the directional system was built and the system was 
to be used, the omnis were no longer in stock!  I must say that the surplus 
dispostion was fairly recent and a surplus buyer I believe from California 
had bought them.  The agency was very lucky and was able to retrieve them.

I must admit this was several years ago and SNAFU's such as this may not 
happen now, but I wouldn't bet on it.

snip
>Thank goodness we have a few politicians who are willing to stand up to the
>pork & pitch process.
>
>>A spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency, Dawn Dearden, said the 
>>military is only destroying surplus it no longer needs.
>
>Excellent. The military is not destroying the surplus it needs.
>Hmmm....equipment can be surplus AND needed?
>Is the spokeswoman taking questions?
>-Hue
>
>
>______________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_2G_0507