Ray Van Eng (06/09/97)                     

This year, more than 28,000 new recruits will have one more thing to learn at the Ft. Leonard Wood army training base in Missouri that is not quite on the official military agenda. They will have to hackle with a First Union Bank issued Visa Cash stored value smart card to pay for personal items and services during their eight week stay at the boot camp.

This will mark the first time the U.S. government, or the Department of Treasury, to be more exact, begins exploring the use of stored value cards to possibly do away with cash handling altogether at military facilities in the future.

The Visa Cash card will bear the recruit's name with his/her signature on the back of the card. The Army Air Force Exchange Service will handle the management and daily cash settlement of the Verifone Omni 395 terminals used for the transactions. After the soldier's duration at the camp, unused portion on the card will then be credited to the individual's military payroll.

A similar trial will also take place soon in Fort Knox, Ky where 11,000 recruits will get a chance to use a Mellon Bank Corp. issued stored value chip card for purchases at the Army basic training post there. The card will carry a cash value of $200.

The Financial Management Service is currently experimenting with electronic checking with about 50 contractors of the Department of Defense. The Feds which has a mandate to convert all paper checks into digital payments by January 1999 is looking to the Internet as a low cost medium for dispensing e-checks which do not require postages.

-------------------------------------

When one talks about the Army these days, it is hard to avoid mentioning the recent sexual conduct cases that have plagued the U.S. military. So the following bits of information may help to shed some positive light on all that controversy.

First, the number of women joining the army is increasing. The U.S. Army hopes to have 90,000 new recruits this year which will add up to a total of 495,000 on active duty by Sept. 30. About 20% of all the new recruits are women.

On June 2, at a "pinning on" ceremony at the Pentagon, Col. B. Sue Dueitt was promoted to be a brigadier general and became the first female Reserve general officer not from the Army Nurse Corps. Her previous duty was in managing the Army's public affairs.

See a photo of Col. Dueitt.