entities on installations. If your club doesn't make money, you have to CLOSE it. If your golf course is in the red, you have to CLOSE it. If your bowling alley isn't profitable, you have to CLOSE it. That's the way it works now--no excuses, no exceptions--and no military people running that shit anymore, either--it's all civilianized and it has to turn a profit, or else.
As a consequence, you have a lot of creative management happening to keep these things afloat for the benefit of the uniforms on the installation. I've seen programs at bases where kids from religious programs unrelated to bases are bused in by the dozens to use (and PAY to use) the bowling alleys on a Saturday morning, when most of the usual customers--single servicemembers--are still sleeping off their Friday night of partying. I've been assigned to commands where the golf course was opened up to "select" civilians--i.e., community bigwigs who wouldn't get drunk and make trouble, and they were invited to join the club and pay monthly dues.
This program is, pure and simple, not a "general's perk" deal, it's an "installation management" device--a command tool. Nothing more. It's also, as I said, a consequence of a congressional mandate about MWR/MWA activities--there's no more profit-sucking perks allowed, anymore, with the taxpayers picking up the tab. With the exception of a few rare "hardship" outposts, MWR/MWA activities have to make money, or they must be closed. This was the CO's way of increasing his customer base by 800.
It's by "invitation only" so there's a vetting process (that includes a background check). You don't want assholes who tend to get drunk and create work for your MPs running around the clubs, after all. You want to be dealing with people who will be of benefit to you as an installation commander, who will support annual charitable shindigs, get involved in morale activities for the troops, and add to--not detract from--the overall Quality of Life effort at the installation.
Here--read about the guy who started the program (in an article in a blog that serves as a "bridge" to the civilian community, months before the scandal broke): http://offthebase.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/macdill-afb-a-community-bids-farewell-to-richoux/
Richoux also worked to expand services to military families, about 80 percent of them, living off base in communities such as Brandon. So, it’s no wonder that this billboard appeared in Brandon.
I don’t know who sponsored the billboard, but you hope Richoux and his family have a chance to see it before flying off to Belgium, their new post.
And a welcome to Col. Scott DeThomas, a friend of Richoux’s, and the new MacDill AFB commander and leader of the 6th Air Mobility Wing.
You have to be very careful how you implement these sorts of things--if you go overboard, you can get complaints from local businesses that the base is taking away their livelihood. You will never see any of those MacDill 'friends' shopping in the exchange or commissary, though you will see them in the "mall" portion of that complex where no ACDU/Ret IDs are required, where there's a food court, a GNC, a beauty parlor/barbershop, souvenir stands, stuff like that.
It's not the "generals" who are making the decision--it's the host commander, and he's making the call based on people who are "known" in the community and who are willing to pay seventeen bucks a month to join the O club (that's a lot of money when you have eight hundred "new members" keeping the club afloat).
Congressional appropriations committees scrutinize MWR/MWA on a line-by-line basis. They also gripe incessantly about personnel/medical costs. Believe me, I have personal experience in this regard.
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