Army Pacific First Fed iPad Buyer?

The 413th Contracting Support Brigade, Ft. Shafter, Hawaii, which supports the U.S. Army Pacific, placed an order in late June for 12 Apple iPad tablet computers, the first federal order I have been able to find for the gizmos that, based on everything I have read, will change civilization as we know it.

The 413th paid $5,940 total for the 12 iPads, each equipped with 16GB of memory and WiFi but not cellular communications. That works out to $495 for each gadget, not much of a discount from Apple's retail price of $499.

I don't know if Ft. Shafter has an on-base WiFi network, but if not, there's a Starbucks and McDonalds nearby with free WiFi.