History
On Oct. 15, 1975—48 years ago this weekend—the Hale Koa resort hotel opened at Fort DeBussy, on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii..The hotel, which includes a PX, was financed entirely by money provided by Exchanges and officer and enlisted clubs.
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Comic-strip character Steve Canyon helped tell the Exchange’s relevancy story. The man who created him was a longtime military story who was unable to serve in the military–so he created characters who could and did.
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Monday will mark the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, when terrorists hijacked jet planes, flying them into both World Trade Center towers and into the Pentagon. Passengers on United Flight 93 died preventing an attack on the U.S. Capitol, overcoming hijackers to crash that plane into a field in Somerset Count, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000…
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One of the more unusual stories of Exchange support began on Sept. 1, 1960, when the United Nations established a PX in the Republic of the Congo. An Exchange associate was put in charge—and he would have some stress-inducing adventures that weren’t directly related to running the store.
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In August 1992, 31 years ago this week, Hurricane Andrew struck, leaving 250,000 homeless across Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas, caused more than $30 billion in damage and took more than 30 lives. At the time, it was the strongest hurricane to hit Florida in 60 years. One of the places it hit hardest was…
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Thirty years ago this, the Exchange opened Firestone Master Care Car Center at Fort Lewis. It was the first such facility on a military installation in CONUS, opening a new era for automotive care at the Exchange.
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The DC, about 100 miles south of Dallas, had already been receiving merchandise for processing for months before the grand opening.
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The movie “Oppenheimer,” and the approaching anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb explosions, inspired this look back at the White Sands Missile Range Exchange. Although it opened after World War II, the Exchange’s location connects it to nuclear-age history. The facility was set up around 1949 as a “satellite” Exchange, according to a…
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You may have heard this week about a certain social media site’s rebranding, which inspires this look back at the Exchange’s own brand, which debuted nearly 13 years ago. On Sept. 17, 2010, a 77,000-square-foot main store opened at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Customers liked the store’s wide aisles and sleek design, and…
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On July 25, the Exchange celebrates 128 years of service to Warfighters and their families. From humble beginnings, the organization has grown into the Department of Defense’s largest retailer.
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