by Phil Rowe
My First Sergeant and I reported to the briefing room at Base Headquarters. We arrived, along with representatives from every outfit on the base, to get instructions on selling tickets to the annual Base Carnival. This charity affair required 100-percent participation, and every person assigned to the base felt the pressure, especially the lower-ranking, least-paid enlisted people.
The briefer gave our outfit $2500 worth of one-dollar tickets to sell, presumably for purchase by the 300-odd members of the squadron. My sergeant and I knew it was impossible to raise that much from men who barely made enough to get by on each month.
"No way, captain," Sergeant Leon protested. "How in the hell do they expect us to pressure guys who barely make ends meet now?"
"You're right, Sarge ... but we don't have a whole lot of choice," I answered. "They told us to get rid of 'em any way we could, and not to bring any back."
Leon shook his head, resigned to the problem but not liking it one bit. The message was clear, the "Old Man", our General, expects 100-percent participation and every outfit's got a quota.
We returned to the office and explained what had transpired to our commander. He was just as angry as we were, and didn't help much when he said that the base commander had already briefed him and all other commanders. The word was clear. Get those tickets sold and that meant "all of them."
Leon and I groused a bit about the problem in my office, so perturbed by it all that we couldn't even enjoy our morning coffee.
Then suddenly Leon's face lit up. "I've got an idea, Captain. There may yet be a way out of this that does not mean putting the arm on our troops."
"Well, let's have it," I said. "I don't relish the idea of hitting our guys up in next week's pay lines. It seems like every payday we're badgering them about one thing or another. Last month it was for donations to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Relief and before that it was the United Way. There's no end to it."
Sergeant Leon leaned forward, almost like he was going to whisper a military secret to me. "Captain, it's simple. All we have to do is get others to buy the tickets ... and not the troops."
"What's so simple about that?" I insisted. "We're sure as hell not going to get another outfit to buy our tickets. They've got their own to get rid of."
"Here's the plan, captain." Leon reached for the classified section of the phone book. He opened it arbitrarily to the page with the new car dealers listed. "Here's our answer," he pointed to the page.
"We'll just go downtown and do a little arm-twisting with all those merchants who have prospered from the base. Those car dealers, merchants, loan sharks and beerhall owners have gotten fat off of our guys. It's time they chipped in. Don't you think?"
I had to admit that Leon had a point, a damn good one. And as far as I could remember from the briefing, there wasn't anything said about not going downtown.
"Okay, let's do it," I agreed. "Let's just do it and we'll keep it to ourselves. No sense helping others figure it out. The sooner we get rid of these tickets, the faster we can get the problem of the backs of our guys."
Next morning at 0800 hours Sergeant Leon and I met at the office and laid out our itinerary for the day. We were both dressed in our Class-A uniforms, Leon with his four rows of ribbons and I with my one lonesome row of three. But, I did have my shiniest captains' bars and navigator wings on.
I drove. Leon looked over the list, as we headed for town, of the first few businesses we planned to hit that morning. We even rehearsed our pitch, .. 'er that is, our appeal. We would approach the owners and managers with the importance of the charity. We would impress upon them the community pride that was reflected in the annual carnival. It would be their civic duty to contribute.
At the first stop, an automobile dealership, we got out of the car and headed for the door briskly. Leon paused as he opened the door for his captain, me, and asked quietly "Sir, how much do you think we ought to ask these people for?" I whispered back "Oh, I guess they ought to be worth $500 or so. We'll see how it goes before we ask for a specific amount."
It went better than we could have hoped. The owner of the dealership was most gracious, and handed me his check for $500. I couldn't believe it. We were in and out of there in five minutes and had already unloaded, that is sold, 20 percent of our tickets.
The rest of the morning went about the same way. By noon we had sold every one of the 2500 tickets. Not one merchant had balked. We felt so good about it we treated ourselves to lunch in a downtown cafe. I didn't even notice when Sergeant Leon had a beer with his Reuben sandwich, even though we were on duty and in uniform.
After lunch we returned to the squadron and marched into our commander's office. He was sitting at his desk, reading and signing papers as we approached.
"What's with you two? You look like you've swallowed the canary or something," he remarked, looking up at us.
"Well, sir," I proudly reported. "This outfit is the first one to be able to say that all of its Carnival tickets have been sold."
I deftly fanned the collection of ticket stubs and merchant's checks onto his desk. "And we won't have to put the arm to any of our troops this time."
The colonel was taken aback. He leaned forward against the arms of his chair and looked at the checks and ticket stubs on his desk blotter. "All of them?" he inquired. "Yes, sir ... every last one of them," I replied.
Sergeant Leon pointed to the two $500 checks. "These were actually the easiest, sir." Most of the others were for at least $100, a few for only $50.
"I'll be damned .... ," the colonel muttered. "That's great. Colonel Watson of the Electronics Squadron ( our rivals next door ) will just puke when he hears about this. That's Great, Great, Great!"
The next morning around 10:00 o'clock our colonel came into the office. He was not a happy man.
"What's the matter, colonel", I asked. "Did you tell the Base Commander that our outfit was already 100-percent sold out of the Carnival tickets."
"I sure as hell did, captain." Oh, oh ... I could tell by the way he said captain that he was unhappy, and probably with me.
"The Old Man was furious." Then our colonel went on to explain. "He chewed me out for a fair-thee-well. Do you realize what you've done? You have got the Old Man in an absolute fit."
Sergeant Leon and I looked at each other, puzzled by this turn of events. We thought the colonel would be pleased. "I don't understand, sir. What's the problem?"
"We'll, captain," the colonel began. "It seems that the General was planning on putting the arm onto those car dealers, your $500 dollar contributors, himself. He expected each of them to come up with at least $2000." Again Leon and I looked at each other.
"There was no way we could have known that, colonel," Sergeant Leon implored. "Nothing was said at the briefing about staying away from downtown merchants."
"Don't worry about it, you two. What's done is done. I didn't know the ground rules either," the colonel responded. "You did what you thought was right. I probably would have agreed with your methods, if you'd told me before going to town."
The colonel motioned for us to get out of his office. We did so with some haste, but not before we heard our boss's parting shots.
"You two managed to be successful ... and at the same time screw up."
That afternoon there was a memo from the Base Commander to all organizations, stating that - No one was to approach local businesses with requests to purchase Carnival tickets. All off-base solicitations would come from Headquarters only.