From a reader:
When I was stationed in Germany 1986-1992, the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (the BX and PX folks) did not use pennies – prices were rounded to the nearest nickel. As I recall the military finance offices did not use pennies either, but I didn’t go to a US finance office very often (most all of my transactions were in Guilders or Deutsch Marks) I believe the no-penny policy had been in use for years, and was told it was to save on the cost of hauling the pennies across the pond from CONUS. Found same policy in place when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1997-98, and another arab country more recently.