blades, tooth powder, soap, and various confection items. Other special ration supplements are the aid station pack and the kitchen spice pack. Many new types of experimental field rations, intended to meet the conditions of the atomic age, are under development.

NUTRIENT CONTENT OF RATIONS. The Army has set a minimum intake of 3,600 calories per day for men performing normal physical activities in a temperate climate. Since 5% wastage must be allowed for, ration menus are based on a minimum of 3,800 calories issued for preparation. Troops whose

duties call for more or less energy over a period of more than a week are authorized an increased or reduced intake. Teen-age troops are given an additional intake to provide for physical growth and development. For Arctic subzero conditions a minimum of 4,400 calories is provided. The minimum daily intake of certain nutrients is as follows: 100 grams of protein, 700 milligrams of calcium, 5,000 international units of vitamin A, 2.2 milligrams of riboflavin, 1.6 milligrams of thiamine, 16 milligrams of niacin, and 50 milligrams of vitamin C.

The Master Menu is the basis for the preparation of the A ration. It is compiled monthly in the Office of The Quartermaster General and is distributed, four months in advance of date of use, to all Army and Air Force installations in the United States. Great care is taken to keep costs within the prescribed allowance, to see that the menu contains all required nutrient elements, and to provide enough variety to appeal to the appetites of the men. Long-range surveys are made to determine what foods are most and least popular; based on these, the menus are adapted as closely as possible to the preferences of the troops.

If any items on a master menu cannot be obtained due to local conditions, substitutions may be made. They are studied in advance by a local "menu board," consisting of the post commissary officer, post surgeon, food advisor, and representatives of the troop units.

commodity. In this way the Agency headquarters is kept advised of the market conditions on which it must base its orders. Although there is no formal bidding, each vendor is brought into competition with other vendors offering the same or substitute items.

The Army buys only Federally inspected meats. Beef for use in the United States is procured both as carcass and boned. That for oversea shipment is usually boned, which saves shipping weight and space, and simplifies meat cutting for the Army cooks. All meat is inspected at the time of purchase, and continuous inspection is maintained over boning, processing, and packaging.

The above program has produced enormous economies. By bulk purchasing, large discounts are obtained. Shipment in carload lots reduces transportation costs. Inspection at point of origin eliminates rejection at posts, camps, and stations.

In the feeding of the Army, the role of the Quartermaster Corps is like that of a wholesale dealer in civilian life. It buys, ships, and stores the food. Food supply at Army posts corresponds to a retail store which dispenses food locally. Finally, the food service units which prepare and serve meals are to the Army what restaurants or housewives are to civilian consumers.

In the fiscal year ending 30 June 1957, centrally procured foods for all three of the Armed Services totaled in cost $723,596,000, or about $2,000,000 a day. The aggregate bulk of central purchases was 3,340,000,000 lbs. About 65% of this total was fresh or perishable foods (some 124 different kinds); about 35% was canned, dehydrated, or otherwise processed nonperishables (over 100 different kinds). In the Army alone, an average of about 2,000,000 men and women ate in military messes during the year.

In World War II our troops operated under all possible conditions of climate and terrain. Experience with the operational rations then in use, notably the K, C, and ten-in-one rations, showed up their strong and weak points and the merits and defects of the food program as a whole. Since the War, the Quartermaster Corps has been conducting research projects on different phases of the subject, in cooperation with various universities, foundations, food laboratories, and with other Government agencies. Lines of research include the following

QUALITY. Among the achievements of the program are increasingly nutritious canned meats, precooked foods which permit of preparing a complete meal in less than half an hour, and better methods of dehydration. Not only do benefit these improvements the Armed Services but many of them, commercialized, will greatly aid the American housewife's task of preparing meals in the home.

STABILITY. The elapsed time be

tween production and consumption of military foods raises problems in procurement and supply. Foodstuffs processed for commercial use are normally consumed within a maximum time of one year, whereas in the Army the interval may be two years or even more. In that interval they may be shipped all over the world, handled repeatedly, and stored under all conceivable conditions. Therefore military rations need special attention in preparation, processing, packaging, and packing. Many improvements have been made along this line.

WEIGHT AND BULK. These are much more important in the Army than in civilian food supply. Shipping space, whether in land, water, or air transportation, is always at a premium in military needless operations. Every cubic foot of food that must be transported reduces the space available for munitions, clothing, fuel, and other military necessities; and every needless pound that a soldier must carry lessens

his endurance and therefore his efficiency in battle. The Quartermaster Corps is constantly working to cut down both the weight and the bulk of the processed foodstuffs that make up its operational rations.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS. These have an important bearing on a soldier's attitude toward food. They include climate, topography, and combat conditions. The sights, noises, and odors of a battlefield often affect a man's willingness, and even his ability to eat certain kinds of food. So do the stresses of fear, monotony, and fatigue. Laboratory experiments have been made by feeding animals under conditions of excitement and strain. Soldier volunteers are also tested to observe the effects of different kinds of foods on

their physical and mental processes, and to determine minimum required caloric intakes.

RADIATION PROGRAM. Since 1954 the Quartermaster Corps has been directing a research project to develop atomic radiation as a method of preserving foods. In this humanitarian application of nuclear energy the Corps is cooperating with the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Agriculture, other military agencies and industrial and educational institutions. Plans have been made for the construction of an Army Ionizing Radiation Center at the Sharpe General Depot, Lathrop, California. It is expected that this center, capable of irradiating 2,000 tons of food per month, will be in operation by the end of 1958.

Of particular interest to every taxpayer is the extent to which the marketing organization and research programs of the Quartermaster Corps have paid off in dollars and cents. From 1940 through 1948 the cost of the A ration more than doubled, following the general trend of food prices throughout the country. Since 1948, as know, there has been a further large increase in civilian food prices; but the cost of the Army's A ration was actually reduced by about 3% in that period while at the same time it was made

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Construction to meet Army and other national needs is the largest single mission of the Corps of Engineers. That agency is unique in that it handles, for the Government and people of the United States, not only military engineering tasks but an immense volume

of nonmilitary work associated with navigation, flood control, and other beneficial public activities. In addition the Corps has various duties other than construction, all related to its civil engineering background.

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The construction power of the United States, as organized for warfare by the Corps of Engineers, has become weapon of outstanding importance. Twice in our generation it has played a vital role in warfare, and today it is a major element of national defense.

In World War II the ability of the engineers to build jungle airfields, smash away enemy defenses, breach minefields, bridge rivers, clear beaches, throw supply lifelines across mountains and swamps, and open the way for our troops wherever they needed to go led General MacArthur to call it "an engineers' war." And five years later, when it seemed possible that the Korean campaign was to be the prelude to global warfare, the engineers' feat of building great air bases simultaneously in the Arctic wastes and on the African desert and doing it in 90 days' construction time-was a major influence in deterring the aggressors.

Our opponents in the present Cold War have vastly more manpower than we, and are approaching parity with us in weapons and military production; but we are still far ahead in the ability to mobilize quickly for construction of unprecedented range and scale. Since modern weapons cannot

get off the ground without equally advanced construction support, and since the strategic concepts of the nuclear age require greater engineering and construction efforts than ever before, our ability to maintain this lead is one of the vital elements in our national defense strength.

In the absence of war, the current military construction mission of the Corps of Engineers is to build the facilities of every kind, all over the world, required by the Army; most of those required by the Air Force; and some of those required by the Navy, the Atomic Energy Commission, and other agencies. Primarily this is done through American contractors. Should war break out, the Corps would also be responsible for combat engineering: that is, engineering in direct support of battle operations, and often a part of them.

CURRENT MILITARY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM. Since the start of the Korean War the Corps has been conducting the largest peacetime military construction program in history, to provide facilities needed by the Army and the Air Force under current strategic defense plans. It involves construction at some 700 bases or installations in the United States and in 22 friendly foreign

nations. The total estimated cost is around $10 billion, and work is proceeding at the rate of about $1.5 billion per year.

The program includes air fields, pipelines, industrial plants, highways, rail facilities, ports, fuel storage tanks, homes, churches, shops, theaters, hospitals, offices, and virtually every other type of facility used by modern society, in addition to purely military installations such as Nike batteries, barracks, and ammunition storage and loading depots. It is carried out in widely varying climates, terrain, and local conditions. Construction in the Arctic must take into account temperatures ranging downward to 70 degrees below zero, and special problems of snow, ice, and permanently frozen earth; at the other extreme, temperatures up to 140 degrees are encountered in Saudi Arabia.

mountains or through jungles. The same equipment is used to construct emergency air strips or fortifications. To cross rivers and ravines the engineers furnish the necessary "piggy-backs" for other combat elements, in the form of assault boats, rafts, ferries, and bridges of all types-floating or fixed, standard or improvised. When minefields are encountered or have to be laid, engineer work parties supply skilled supervision and advice. If demolition or reduction of fortifications is needed-often under fire-the combat engineer is present with tools, explosives, skill, ingenuity, and courage. Engineer water purification sets and water distributors furnish potable water to the troops. Field mapping units provide the sheets and relief maps which are needed, by the hundreds of millions, in modern warfare. Engineer generators provide power for critical command, medical, and supply installations. Throughout the combat area, engineer reconnaisance elements, some airborne, are seeking and probing to determine what lies ahead.

Often the combat engineers must fight to secure or defend their work sites. And it is Army doctrine that, when the tactical situation requires it, they may be used as infantry in attack or defense. Divisional and other combat engineer units are armed and trained to that end.

The ability of the Corps of Engineers to handle its military tasks in peace and war is derived largely from its civil works program, under which it builds and operates a nationwide and constantly growing network of flood control, navigation, hydroelectric power, and other projects. Thanks to its peacetime activities, the Corps is a complex of organizational and technical resources. Its personnel include specialists in virtually all branches of engineering technology, some of them to be found nowhere else. It is intimately familiar with the construction industry, and thereby can draw on the total construction and engineering resources of the American people.

Initially the Corps became involved in civil works because, in the early days of our national history, its officers were the only reservoir of trained civil engineers available to the Federal Government. As the nation grew, the civil works responsibilities of the Corps grew with it. Also, of course, there grew up a highly competent body of professional engineers in civilian life; and for some years there was periodic pressure, from various sources, to transfer civil works from the Army to a Department of Public Works manned wholly by civilians. Repeatedly such proposals were defeated in Congress, thanks to the fact that a majority of its members had firsthand knowledge,