#FlashbackFriday: 1991—How the First Kuwait PX Was Opened Within 96 Hours

Nearly 32 years ago, on March 6, 1991, Army Central Command for Desert Storm asked that a PX be established in Kuwait. This was shortly after Operation Desert Storm ended and the Exchange would need to support several thousand customers.

“The reality was we were supporting not only the local troops, but also the tens of thousands of troops coming in from forward attack positions,” Bob Stack, a retail project manager, told The Exchange Post in 1991. “Ten times what we had planned.”

The next day, Stack, along with Saudi Arabia Sales District Manager Mike Bixby and Leo Nolin, the equipment and facilities manager, flew to Kuwait City on a six-passenger C12. The pilots talked to them about their experiences during the Persian Gulf War.

This photo from a 1991 Exchange Post and the above photo show the popularity of the first Kuwait PX. The Exchange now runs five stores in Kuwait.

“I recall one of the pilots telling us to take our worst expectancy of how hell would appear, and be ready to face it,” Stack said. “When we came down to land, we had to pass into the total darkness created by the oil-burning clouds. We remained in absolute darkness for about five minutes. I was totally unprepared for what faced me when we actually broke through the clouds into the gloom of ground-level Kuwait. I was absolutely thunderstruck by the hundreds of burning oil wells. The land seemed to be on fire.”

After they returned to Saudi Arabia, Bixby instructed Stack and Dick Risher, another retail project specialist, to leave immediately for Kuwait to set up and operate a forward tactical Exchange. Stack and Risher greeted the challenge not with trepidation but with excitement. “It was short notice but the fulfillment of every AAFES retailer’s ambition,” Stack said. “This truly was what AAFES is all about.”

The store wouldn’t be just the first PX in Kuwait—it would be the only retail store in the country. The team had to locate the equipment needed to operate a store that was expected to do $25,000 daily in a location with no resources. Within 24 hours, equipment was found, as well as contract laborers willing to make the trip to Kuwait.

Merchandise was loaded onto two 40-foot flatbeds and a trailer and transported to Kuwait. They traveled with a military convoy that grew from 34 to 60 trucks during the trip. It took the convoy 18 hours to make it to Kuwait, more than twice the time the trip would have taken in normal peacetime conditions.

At the border, the convoy split up, but some of the trucks that were supposed to travel with the main portion inadvertently stayed behind. As Army escorts led those trucks back to the main element, the three Exchange trucks remained by the side of the road until the escorts returned.

“Although the wait was in fact only a couple of hours, it seemed much longer,” Stack told The Exchange Post. “While we were waiting, there was gunfire close by. … It didn’t last long, but it was enough to bring home the point that all of us were on a trip that was anything but a picnic.”

The Exchange trucks finally arrived at their destination at midnight. Only hours later, the managers started setting up the PX trailer. The next day, March 10, the store was open—a little less than 96 hours after the Army made its request.

“This was an operation that was opened from scratch,” Bixby said. “There wasn’t even electricity available when we laid our plans. It’s an operation that makes retailing history as a stand-alone event.”

The Exchange still operates in Kuwait, but it has gone beyond one quickly assembled store. There are stores at Camps Arifjan and Buehring, Ali Al Salem and Al Jaber Air Bases, and at the Kuwait Navy Base.