GOVERNMENT: The Serviceman’s Utopia

To 1,683,000 U.S. Army and Air Force men and their families stationed in 27 countries, payday usually means a visit to the PX, the world’s biggest exclusive shopping preserve. Last week the payday rush was on in 5,933 PXs, helping to make the Army and Air Force Exchange Service rank in dollar volume below only Sears, Roebuck, J. C. Penney, Montgomery Ward and F. W. Woolworth among retail chains. To maintain its place as one of the U.S. military’s greatest fringe benefits, PX branches stock up to 30,000 items, sell everything from underwear to refrigerators—all at cut-rate prices designed for the private who earns only $78 a month, the master sergeant who earns $310. Yet the PX earns money, last year made a $60 million profit on sales of $895 million—and is doing even better in 1960.*

To become so big, the PX has changed greatly since its founding 65 years ago to sell horse blankets and snuff. From the raggle-taggle mobile units and Quonset huts that most G.I.s remember at the end of World War II, the PX system has moved into fancier quarters, now includes shopping centers the size of a city block. They are designed to meet the needs of the new-style serviceman and his family. Eighty-seven percent of all officers and some 50% of all enlisted men are married, with an average of two children. Says the wife of a sergeant stationed in Frankfurt. West Germany: “If they ever took the PX away from us, I’d be on the next boat home.”

Dine-A-Mite & Poker Chips. The man responsible for keeping soldiers and their families well supplied is Brigadier General Ray Joseph Laux, 52, a grey-haired, blue-eyed Quartermaster Corps planning expert. From his office at worldwide exchange headquarters in Manhattan, General Laux commands a retailing complex that could demand the services of a $200,000-a-year executive in the world of business; he does the job for $16,725 a year. Of the PX’s 67,500 employees, some 44,000 are foreign nationals working abroad. This mix sometimes presents problems. In Morocco, faced with native snack-bar waiters who spoke only Arabic, the PX had to set up a system of poker chips to place orders: red for a hamburger, blue for coffee, etc.

To please its customers, the European Exchange System (2,918 branches), biggest of 14 PX districts, has built seven PX drive-in snack bars along West German Autobahnen with such names as Java Junction and Dine-A-Mite. Over the past ten years the European System has nearly doubled its stock of items, which now includes Italian fashions, men’s custom-tailored suits, frozen pheasants and ten different brands of can openers. The PX system also includes barbershops, delicatessens, auto parts shops, dry cleaning and laundry service, and shoe, watch and radio repair shops.

But what pleases the soldier most about the PX is its prices, which run about 20% below U.S. retail prices. Reason: the PX does not have to pay income taxes, gets free shipment of goods overseas, has its stores built for it, spends little for advertising or promotion. Clothing sells for 15% to 50% less than in the U.S., watches for 55% less, quality cameras for up to 45% less. And by buying from the PX, the soldier is actually dealing himself a bonus: all PX profits go to military welfare funds.

The Taste Setter. Many a military family’s clothes, music and image of America are determined by the PX. The system ships Christmas trees to Ethiopia, often gets new dress styles on its racks as quickly as U.S. stores. Many PXs introduce foreign goods. The Moroccan camel-saddle fad started in the PX, and much of current Japanese design influence originated through PX-sold items.

While the PX may be the military man’s idea of Utopia, the system is still the target of outside criticism. U.S. retailers feel that PXs compete with private business, would like to limit what PXs can sell even beyond present rules (which prevent Stateside PXs from selling major appliances, and most clothing and furniture). PXs have been singled out as a prime culprit in isolating U.S. military men abroad from exposure to different cultures. Scoffs one German: “Your American soldier seems to live here as though he were surrounded by primitive aborigines.” The PX has also suffered from black-market scandals. Though the black market is no longer a big problem in prosperous Europe. $1,000,000 a year in PX goods is sold on the Japanese black market, and in Korea the estimate is as high as $500,000 per month.

Such criticisms and problems are not likely to provoke basic changes in the PX system, which has already gone a long way toward correcting its own abuses. The PX has become established as an integral part of the modern U.S. serviceman’s life. “Wherever it is,” says General Laux. “the PX is a bit of America following the troops.”

* The Navy and Marine Corps have their own exchange systems, which last year had total sales of $362.6 million, profits of $23.7 million.