Petraeus allows MWR concessions back
You probably remember COB’s post about General McCrystal’s order for the fast food and PX concessionaires to remove their facilities from Afghanistan. Well, there’s a new commander in town and he has a somewhat different view of the situation;
“These quality-of-life programs remain important to soldiers for stress relief and therefore enhancing military readiness,” Gen. David Petraeus wrote in an Oct. 4 order.
The ultimate goal of restoring these concessions to Afghanistan, he wrote, is “boosting residents’ morale on U.S. bases.”
So pogues and fobbits everywhere, rejoice. There’s something to do besides your job. Of course, for you trigger-pullers out there, nothing has changed. Unless they assign a pogue to bring you an ice cream cone in your fighting position.
Petraeus continues;
In his new order, Petraeus noted that AAFES concessions must be “right-sized and tailored for an expeditionary force in order to ensure that they do not become distractions to the mission.”
Oh, how could that happen? There’s so much to do inside the Baskin Robbins to further the war effort. Yes, I very much hate pogues. And I have my reasons.
Category: Military issues
John, I am sure you remember the rolling PX’s at Ft. Irwin. How many times did you actually see one? I was there 3 times and I saw one, one time, the day we were flying back. The rest of the time it was desert.
Its a double edged sword, I agree, but in the end, I’ll accept the REMFs eating Burger King five day a week just so that one joe who’s been at the front line COP for three months straight enjoy a whopper and fries.
Hey, SOMEONE has to be on the permanent fat bitch program.
I asked a man I knew who was in the infantry in Europe in WWII what it was like, he said hunger, we had to get our own food a lot of the time they didn’t feed us. So fast food now can’t hurt the mission. And a BX or PX the right size must be OK or Petraeus would not be bringing them back.
McCrystal must have had his reasons and maybe the concessions were becoming a problem. I wouldn’t know but evidently the problem was not solved by taking it all away.
John –
Having spent time in ‘Stan with the same unit TSO was in, I can say that I’m for having a few of the AAFES facilities available. They were an excellent respite after being at a smaller FOB for several months and then coming back, restocking on dip, smokes and pogie bait and then returning to the more austere environments. I have no problem with a Burger King being available to Soldiers occasionally.
What I did have a problem with is the MWR hut where the pogues go and hide out during their workday or have dance night (Salsa, Rap, Country). I think those activities were a much bigger distractor than the AAFES facilities.
Bagram and Kandahar both have a very “garrison” feel to them and I realize that’s what we really want it ultimately to be. Safe staging points where our troops can move logistics and personnel in and out of country. However, when you’re having contact directly outside the gate and you close off the main drag (Disney Dr) so troops can PT versus QRF being able to use the road to respond to threats, you’ve lost the reason you are there. That’s what the leadership needed to look at versus pulling the Burger King.
1SG-According to the article from the Army Times. concessionaires were reduced from 141 to 80, so they were only trimmed and not completely removed.
While I agree that one trigger puller getting one burger every four months is worth 20,000 pogues getting three burgers every day for their six month tour, my problem is stupid shit like car dealers having a concession. And it’s been my experience that if a group of people on a base get restricted from access to PX concessions, it’s always the trigger pullers in favor of the home team.
Jerry, I was there 4 times and never saw one at all! I wuz robbed!
I never saw one at Irwin either, come to think of it, I never saw the OPFOR either, just the damn flasher on my tank blinking all the friggen time and the beeping in my CVC…
Hell, the rare couple of times I got to a “mobile shoppette” in Desert Storm the pogues had already bought all the good smokes and dip – nuthin but “Skoal pouches” left….those things weren’t worth a spit (get it!)
I gotta say, having the distraction of a decent px and a couple of fast food joints at Tallil Airbase in Iraq was a godsend when they arrived. After five or six 18 hour days of white knuckling Central Iraq to deliver parts, supplies, and payroll to FOB’s, and rolling through neighborhoods the trigger pullers hadn’t even been to yet, it was definitely a morale lifter to know a burger, chocolate, chips, and smokes (and even beer or whiskey once we made our contacts with the Italian Carabinieri in camp) were a short hike away once we got ‘home’. ‘Combat Trains’ had its advantages in 2003. 😉
We went to war and a garrison broke out. I wasn’t on the pointy end, but we spent some time helping those who were, and the disconnect between those who never left Bagram and those who rarely saw it was pretty intense.
I’d happily trade all of the concessions on BAF for an enlisted-only walking path so I could get to the company CP without saluting 80 times.
Baf is a different world. If u ride around Disney it doesnt even seem like the average soldier even realizes hes in a warzone, but the war is right outside the wire. I enjoyed the Dairy Queen they had whenever we rolled into Camp Warrior, but there were a lot of overweight soldiers there. I would probably put on some weight there too, We roll into Baf once a month or so for vic maintenance, but after a day or two we are all usually ready to go back ‘home.’
I enjoyed delivering 40 trucks full of PX trash everyday only to walk into the PX and see it stripped bare of everything I needed by the REMFs of whatever base we were going to.