The first time I met Skidmore, his squad leader was bringing him into my office with the challenge of the day...probably the month. One of my mentors was a Master Sergeant named Lightfoot who referred to any soldier who caused him to put down his magazine as "Skidmore". It was his title for problem children. So when the squad leader introduced him, he already had a strike against him. I said, "Hi, I've heard a lot about you." He and his squad leader looked confused, but I didn't explain.

The issue that his squad leader couldn't help him resolve had to do with movie rentals and the AAFES policies about rentals. Skidmore had rented four movies. The rental period at the time was 7 days. AAFES charged a certain amount per day per movie after 7 days. Pretty standard. But Skidmore showed me the most recent bill from AAFES with the total of over $600.00 past due...for late charges. I raised my eyebrows, inviting explanation. This is roughly what I got from him:

Right after he rented the movies, he loaned a couple of them to a friend. He got tagged to go on a mission to support a unit in the field for two weeks. He got back to the barracks to find someone had taken the other two movies. He went to the movie rental shop and explained his problem. They told him that there was no provision for any of that, the movie late charges would continue to accumulate until the movies were returned. Skidmore tried a couple more times, then employed the standard Joe Willy solution...ignore it and it will go away. So for the next several months, he did just that. And the late charges built up. A letter had been sent to the unit commander, who called Skidmore in and told him to pay up what he owed. He turned it over to the First Sergeant (my predecessor) who stuck it in a drawer and forgot about it. And the late fees mounted up. The squad leader tried, the platoon sergeant tried, no one could budge AAFES and Skidmore didn't have $600. The movies that he loaned to a friend? The friend went back to the States while Skidmore was in the field, apparently he liked the movies because he took them with him.

With that as my starting point, I called the rental shop to get their take on things. No one working there was working there when all this started. But their attitude was simple. The late fees continue to accumulate until the movie is returned. I asked if he could just buy replacements and pointed out that each of the movies was probably only worth $15.00, and asked what made them $600 special? It was explained to me that the late fees covered lost revenue. I quickly realized that I was talking to the wrong person.

My next contact was the General Manager of the Stuttgart area AAFES stores. After explaining the situation to him, complete with lost revenue and movie values, he said he would research the incident and applicable rules and call me back. To my surprise, it only took about an hour for him to call me back. He explained that the rules and policies were clear and Skidmore would have to pay the $600. The Southern Germany District office of AAFES was located in Stuttgart,too. So I called the District Managers office. After the requisit delay while he brought himself up to speed, he began to give me the same party line I had already received twice. I stopped him in mid stream. I pointed out that the policy needed to be changed. That set him back. These policies came from AAFES Headquarters in Texas somewhere...they couldn't be changed. I explained that there were big banners all over every AAFES facility in Europe that proclaimed that their mission was "Serving Soldiers". I asked him how you explain to this miserable little Private, who can't be trusted to get himself out of bed and get dressed every morning with out supervision, that he was being "served". I asked him to explain to me, who could be trusted to get up unsupervised, how scamming a private out of $600 dollars for $60 worth of movies was serving my soldier. I pointed out that he was in a unique position to actually make a real difference in the life of one soldier. The manager insisted that he didn't have the authority to change policy. I told him that I had done the courtesy of allowing all the folks in the chain of authority from the rental shop to the big Kahuna in charge the opportunity to make this right. I pointed out that all of them were civilians and were rule bound and lock stepped in the screwing of this soldier. But the overall commander of AAFES is a two star General, a soldier, and I was curious how he would feel about their rules and policies in this case. The manager asked me to allow him to research this further and he would get back to me soon.

In a couple of days, I got a call from the District Manager who said he agreed with me that it didn't make sense to charge so much for late fees and he was going to get the policy changed. In the meantime, he felt that paying for the replacement of the movies was a much more reasonable solution. I congratulated him on his courage in changing a bad policy. Then I said he should show his genuine concern for the soldiers he serves by forgiving the outstanding late fees Private Skidmore owed. After a lengthy silence, he agreed and hung up.

Not every case worked out this well. Sometimes the establishment just doesn't care who it is chewing up. But every now and then you catch one like this. It may not be as good as a touchdown pass, or long, high home run...but very darn close.