CORAL GABLES, Fla. - Marine Gen. John F. Kelly works in a fortresslike headquarters near the Miami airport. Starting this fall, he will live in Casa Sur, an elegant home with a pool and gardens on one of the area?s swankiest streets.
The five-bedroom residence, across the street from the famed Biltmore Golf Course, is provided rent free to Kelly as head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the ?Caribbean. The cost to the government? $160,000 a year, plus $402,000 for renovations and security improvements now underway.
Casa Sur is one of hundreds of high-end homes, villas and mansions where senior generals and admirals are billeted, according to a Pentagon report prepared for Congress last month but not publicly released.
Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the Air Force four-star who commands NATO, gets a 15,000-square-foot 19th-century ch?teau in Belgium. Lt. Gen. Steven A. Hummer, head of Marine Forces Reserve, enjoys a 19th-century plantation house in New Orleans listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and their deputies inhabit historic quarters in and around Washington ? all staffed with chefs, drivers, gardeners and security teams.
The perks for top military brass, a Pentagon tradition, are under increasing scrutiny in Congress at a time when budget reductions and the mandatory spending cuts known as the sequester have forced the Pentagon to cut services, close facilities, cancel training and missions, and furlough 680,000 civilian workers.
?There is no good news,? Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told hundreds of defense workers at Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina on Wednesday after one woman, who was forced to take 11 days without pay, said she had to take a second job to support her children. ?It breaks my heart.?
In the annual appropriations bill for military construction approved by a House committee last month, lawmakers criticized the Pentagon for the ?excessive cost? of maintaining ?large and aging? homes and for the ?apparent unwillingness on the part of the [military] services to seek less expensive alternatives.?
All active-duty military personnel and their families receive free housing on bases or allowances to defray the cost of renting or buying in nearby communities. It costs the Pentagon $1.5 billion a year.
Generals say it?s necessary
Generals and admirals say they need large houses with high security ? as well as cooks and gardeners ? because they often host visiting dignitaries or preside at ceremonial events. Keeping pricey properties makes fiscal sense, they argue, because the Pentagon either already owns them or would waste money finding a suitable rental every time a senior officer is moved to a new command.
Yet changes are underway.
Source: http://www.startribune.com/world/216377481.html
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