Good day to all. I happen to be a disgruntled AAFES patron, like most of you. Part of my dislike comes from distaste for anyone with a corner on the market, the other comes from a distaste for big chain stores. In either case I'm a customer just the same, but I have a story about AAFES that helps to reinforce my lack of care.
Back in May of '06 I deployed for the 4th time, 3d time back to CENTAF. Now my first two trips to CENTAF were to build bare bases, so AAFES didn't really exist out there yet. We ended up with an AAFES right before we left, and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread when that happened. But this last trip was different. I was on an AEF rotation for the first time. The base was already built, politics had settled in, it was like transferring to a CONUS base, with the exception of the booms of course.
Well, I was there, doing my thing, getting everything fixed and working right when the ball dropped for me to head to Baghdad for a couple of weeks. If the orders wouldn't have dropped while most of my clothes were at the wash. All well, I'll go to the BX and grab some stuff to get me by. I needed socks, undies and undershirts. So off I go to waste some money at the only place to buy anything behind the wire, the PX.
I drag myself into the air conditioning and get the instant revitalization I needed to accomplish my objective. First thing I came upon was the sock rack. With nothing but thick, wool socks on the shelves. This is June. In Southern Iraq. If it was Northern Iraq I could understand having thick socks in the winter. This was neither winter or the north. Yay me. I didn't grab any. Next was undies. You guessed it. XXL's only. First, who still fits into XXL's after spending any amount of time out there? Second, they had NSN's on the package. I couldn't even get good undies. They were gov specials. I grabbed some. I figured my belt would keep them in place. Okay, so I still need shirts. I hop on over there and yay me! They have my size. Of course they only have my size in Under Armor, which they were charging $30 for (If my memory is right. I know it was over $20). XS in the Duke shirts. That's it. Not even Super XL's.
That was it. I dropped the undies off and left. Crossed my fingers that Baghdad would have something, otherwise I'd be doing laundry next to a water buffalo again. The AAFES at Camp Liberty had everything you would ever need. The only thing I could even think about complaining about was the prices, but I understand that it takes money to ship stuff, so a buck or two more for stuff is okay in my mind. I do my thing and head back to Ali.
At this point I'm still disgruntled that I had to take a Black Hawk halfway across the country just to buy a t-shirt, so I go and visit my local PX again to check on supplies. Nope, still out. I went back there no less than once a week for the duration of my tour, always checking the stock. It never changed. The stuff that was there stayed, the empty hooks stayed empty. I figure the Army folks had stuff worked out through their convoys, but the AF guys were just out of luck. All well, I was only there for four months so it really didn't affect my well being, but I still think it was crappy for AAFES to run the place like that. I eventually bought one of those expensive shirts, and I must say Under Armor knows what they're doing. That doesn't change the fact that I should have a choice in the matter.
I know that story was long winded, but I have nothing better to do at the moment, so I felt like adding a whole bunch of fluff to at least make it a little bit interesting.
I could go on about how the cheapest pair of sunglasses ever stocked there was $50 (on sale from $120 of course), but then it would seem like I was accusing AAFES of taking advantage of their position as sole provider of BOS items to us in hostile areas...
