Living In The Past

 Not anything negative just an alternative reality. I recently had a shot at being in the field, but my job hopping had negated that. the good ole NBIS background suited me as a person that would not fit the criteria of an  operations supervisor for what is essentially what would be labeled an NCO club back in the day, but that is here nor there. 

These are not my stories but stories told to me.

Barring any glass ceilings or prejudices that happened back in the day it was very interesting to say the least.

These events in no chronological order happened in the 70s, 80s and early 90s.

Mandated by congress MWR package stores were to turn over to AAFES. During this time in the late 80s certain Area's in Korea decided to "screw over" AAFES. MWR package stores had a lifetime supply of cherries, maraschino cherries to be exact. Many of the bases in Korea where MWR leadership were pissed that they were losing the main source of profit for the function decided to sell the cherries to the Koreans. The Koreans in turn sold it on the black market, to give the ole black eye to there "competitor" AAFES.

More shenanigans between the two so called rivals. AAFES and MWR

AAFES tried to partner with MWR in putting a shopette at one of the small bars MWR had on base. MWR basically told them to fly a kite. It would of made both functions profitable being in a prime location. That building had a failed bbq joint, failed bar, failed fitness center and from what I heard is sitting dormant doing nothing.

AAFES tried to take over a space in an MWR club one the first floor or the basement to convert it to a shoppette, to prevent AAFES from doing this MWR decided to build a false wall so that the dimensions of the shopette would not be up to the standard size of the shopette forcing AAFES to scrap the plan. MWR later put a brewery in that area, however, poor management would later doom what was supposed to be a money maker.

AAFES and MWR had an agreement at every base event, that was that AAFES would sell food and non-alcoholic beverages, MWR would sell liquor beer and wine. That was broken by new AAFES management that first wanted to sell the wine then wanted to sell liquor as well.

I bring this up because what is hilarious and kind of a shame because it would have given anyone who worked or lived on base to stay on base instead of going downtown is that if both entities worked together both would stand to profit immensely. What is hilarious is that the organization that ran the commissary had good relations with the two rivals. 

Back in those days they had go-go dancers for the guys and gals. They had full on casinos not only with slots like you see today in Korea and probably other overseas American military bases that are mainly used for building maintenance, but they had card games like blackjack. Believe or not they made more on the card games then they ever did with the slots.

Bowling Centers had much more autonomy not being controlled by the league with the manager changing the oil patterns weekly. In fact one bowling center kicked out the league and made money mostly on single bowlers that had no bowling affiliations and did not care what pattern was done on the lanes.

Club Managers and Assistant Club Managers use to drink after work and drink during inventory time or when they had to deep clean the club creating a sense of comradery. 

I could go on.