continue to have shopping privileges. Spouses and dependent children of service personnel are authorized commissary privileges, as are recipients of the Medal of Honor, and veterans honorably discharged from service with 100% disability in connection with military service also have authorized commissary privileges. As the role of the American military grew larger, commissaries began to spread around the world. The first overseas stores opened in Cuba, the Philippines and in China between 1898 and 1904. They were soon followed by commissaries in Panama and Puerto Rico. Eventually, all the services adopted the Army's concept of commissary sales stores and tailored the concept to their own needs. The Navy and Marine Corps opened their first commissaries in 1909 and 1910, and the Air Force inherited its stores from the Army Air Forces in 1947 and 1948. By the mid-1970s, each of the services ran its own commissary agency, with differing procedures and systems: the Army Troop Support Agency (TSA), the Navy Resale System Support Office (NAVRESSO), the Commissary Section of the Marine Corps Services Command, and the Air Force Commissary Service (AFCOMS). Separate systems combined In 1989, Congress directed DoD to conduct a study of the separate military commissary systems. The ensuing report by the Jones Commission (headed by Army Lt. Gen. Donald E. Jones) recommended consolidating the service systems into one agency to improve service and save money. The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) was established May 15, 1990, by a memorandum from the deputy secretary of defense; this was the first DoD functional agency consolidation during the post-Cold War cutbacks and downsizing. DoD appointed Army Maj. Gen. John P. Dreska as the agency's first director in June 1990. Shortly afterward, a transition team of commissary functional experts managed the consolidation of all the service systems into a single agency, and DeCA assumed full control of all commissaries on Oct. 1, 1991, at its headquarters in Fort Lee, Va. After leading DeCA through its initial year of operation, Dreska retired in 1992, and Army Maj. Gen. Richard E. Beale Jr. became the new director. Beale retired from the military Sept. 30, 1996, but stayed on the job as the first civilian director of the agency. He was succeeded by Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert J. Courter Jr. (November 1999 to August 2002) and Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael P. Wiedemer (August 2002 to October 2004). Patrick B. Nixon, who served as