No government waste with this project
Perhaps the most infamous case of government bungling and wastefulness is the case of the $640 toilet seat. Most of us have heard this story, shaking our heads at government incompetence, even though we’d be wrong.
Sure, we can get a toilet seat for 20 bucks or less at the local hardware store. No wonder we shake our heads at our tax dollars being spent for a toilet seat that must be gold-plated for the price the government is paying.
But the toilet-seat case was really about a unique part intended for several dozen multimillion dollar aircraft undergoing a service-life extension and incorrect nomenclature on the specifications for the aircrew relief subsystem.
The specs incorrectly labeled a "shroud" as a "toilet seat." The Navy decided not to pay the several thousand dollars to redo the specifications with the proper nomenclature. A Senate staffer scanning military records for a congressional waste report saw "Toilet seat: $640" on some report, trumpeted it to the news media before completing proper research, and voila: you have the $640 toilet seat scandal that didn’t really happen but just won’t die.
Unfortunately though, there are plenty of real cases of massive government waste and incompetence. While, like the $640 toilet seats reports, you should not accept at face value everything you hear or read (including, for that matter, this column) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld admitted to CBS News in 2002, "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions."
Similarly, the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006 quoted Winslow Wheeler, a former national security expert for the Senate Budget Committee who called the Defense Department, "… the worst-managed agency in the federal government, (that) can’t account for the half-trillion dollars it spends each year, and seeks to produce weapons that are irrelevant or ineffective, or both."
While there are plenty of stories recounting Defense Department inefficiencies, every cloud, as is said, has a silver lining. A story of efficient spending on a relevant and effective weapons system happened right here at Cherry Point. And the odyssey of the EA-6B Prowler electronic attack jet weapons system trainer ending up here began at virtually the same time as the 2006 San Francisco Chronicle report quoted above.
The WST’s arrival at Cherry Point is a good news story — a Marine Corps "best bang for the defense buck" story — an American story of teamwork, persistence, and cooperation. It’s a "git ‘er done" story of searching for and finding the most efficient way, at best cost, to accomplish the mission. It must be told if for no other reason than to balance all the bad news about government incompetence with which we’re bombarded.
The Marine Corps effectively yanked the Prowler (device nomenclature 2F-185) WST from the "jaws" of the Defense Reutilization and Management Office. DRMO is the organization that disposes of surplus military equipment. The nearly new, $16 million 2F-185 aircraft simulator was no longer needed in 2006 by the Navy. They were transitioning their electronic warfare mission from the EA-6B Prowler to an electronic aircraft pod, the "Growler." The Navy was looking for space at its Prowler training squadron at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., for its new Growler simulator, space then filled by the 2F-185 Prowler WST.
Nonetheless, the Marines needed the device. They were keeping the Prowler aircraft for at least another decade and needed the enhanced training capabilities the 2F-185 could provide.
In a series of actions that taken in their entirety seem like a long time but in the federal acquisition and budgeting world happened very quickly, the Marines went to work. In a matter of a few months, they got the required headquarters endorsements to an (initially) simple plan to take possession of and relocate the 2F-185 to save it from DRMO. The Marines budgeted and funded the WST’s relocation to a temporary storage facility in California. From there, the device was upgraded to the current configuration of the aircraft and relocated again to Cherry Point, arriving in 2009 on multiple flatbed tractor trailers in several hundred pieces, several of them weighing thousands of pounds.
Between 2006 and 2009, a building planned and budgeted to be built at Cherry Point to house the 2F-185 WST was delayed and then canceled, avoiding the expenditure of $1.5 million.
Because of superb cooperation between — and out-of-the-box thinking by — Naval Air Systems Command aircraft program office, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing and Cherry Point personnel, far less expensive building modifications (compared to constructing a new building) were made to the existing Cherry Point facility that has ultimately housed the 2F-185 WST.
From 2009 to this week, the 2F-185 WST was carefully moved into its modified building space, reassembled, received visual and technical upgrades, and was extensively tested to ensure it flies like the actual aircraft. It is a superb, effective and relevant training system, secured by the Marines and the civilians that support them for a fraction of the cost of other options. It is a WST that will carry the Marines through the sunsetting of the venerable Prowler aircraft itself within the next decade.
The 2F-185 WST’s arrival at Cherry Point and its readiness for training date, marked by a ribbon cutting this week, are testament to the fact that the Defense Department can work. Its being here — instead of ripped to pieces — should allow us at least for a moment to forget incompetence and, instead, celebrate the Cherry Point story, the Marine Corps story, the American story of the 2F-185 simulator and the dedicated people who made it happen.
Barry Fetzer is a columnist for the Havelock News. He can be reached at fetzerab@ec.rr.com.
