Supporting the Troops by Auctioning Them Off

There are just hours left to “buy” the four remaining GIs posted on EBay.

Two others were sold this month for $100 apiece: Brittany Renee Fritz of Porterville, Calif., a medic stationed at the Navy hospital in Naples, Italy, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Morton “Steve” Scisco.

A new twist on downsizing the military? Hardly. It’s just an effort by military relatives to raise money using the “bachelor auction” model to pay for calling cards and other gifts they have been sending to troops in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.

All that was up for auction, organizer Sue Musgrave made clear from her home at Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico, was the opportunity to shake hands, buy dinner and “say thank you to one of America’s finest.”

But the auction on EBay hasn’t been smooth sailing.

Soon after Musgrave posted the service members’ photos, the Air Force brass moved in, and Musgrave’s Shake a Hero’s Hand program screeched to a halt faster than an F-14 landing on an aircraft carrier.

Musgrave, 29, said she was told May 12 by an Air Force legal official that complaints had been lodged by people who said they shouldn’t have to pay to shake the hands of those whose salaries were paid with their taxes.

The eight participating service members would be contacted and possibly “counseled” for participating, Musgrave said she was told.

“Normally, people don’t counsel you when you do something good,” she said. “We weren’t doing it to make tons of money but to boost morale.”

Musgrave, the wife of Air Force Sgt. James Musgrave and a mother of three, said she was near tears but decided to take the ads down rather than get anyone in trouble.

The service members -- from the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines -- had cleared participation with their respective commanders before the ads went up, Musgrave said.

Fritz, the Navy medic, said in an e-mail exchange with a reporter that her commander told her it was a “great idea” as long as she did not wear a uniform and bidders were told the military had nothing to do with the effort.

The ads carried a disclaimer that the drive was not sponsored by the military.

“It was just a chance for people to shake their hand and say thanks for being in the military,” Musgrave said. “But I’m not going to cause anyone who is volunteering any trouble. They are all awesome military members.”

Steve Maris, 29, a petty officer second class on a Navy submarine, was the high bidder for the handshake with Fritz. He’s not sure he will ever meet her because she is on another continent, but that’s not the point, he said.

“If we talk on the Internet, that’ll be fine,” said Maris, whose home is outside Seattle. “I really just wanted to support the operation and what they do -- to support them so they can support the troops.”

An Air Force spokeswoman referred questions to the Department of Defense, which referred the inquiry back to the Air Force.

Musgrave’s Shake a Hero’s Hand program is the latest idea she has had to raise funds through her grass-roots organization Operation We Do Care.

Musgrave said she started sending phone cards and care packages to troops about three years ago, after her son Joey, then 8, saw a protester dressed as a dead service member.

Joey wanted to show his father -- then deployed in the Middle East -- that people supported him, she said. The mother and son traveled through five states raising money -- selling “We support our troops” stickers for a quarter apiece outside Wal-Mart stores. Other shoppers purchased 120-minute calling cards for $5 apiece. Each donor wrote a message on the back of the card. Several wrote, “I don’t support the war, but I support you,” Musgrave said.

Musgrave’s Operation We Do Care raised enough so that each soldier aboard the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy got a 15-minute call home, doubling his or her military allotment.

Since then, she and a few other volunteers have sent 300 care packages containing items that were donated or purchased such as beef jerky, disposable cameras, games, lip balm, cough drops, disposable wipes and inflatable wading pools for soaking feet. The packages, with enough items for 50 troops, were sent to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo and South Korea.

Some of the volunteers being auctioned had received some of Musgrave’s care packages -- and they were undaunted by the scrutiny. They demanded to be put back up on EBay.

So she posted them for auction again -- with the exception of the Air Force volunteer.

Greg Zemke, an Army staff sergeant at Ft. Hood, Texas, said the packages gave him a morale boost while he was deployed for 13 months in Baghdad. “I’m doing it more as a favor,” he said, “because it helped me out while I was there.”

So far, bidding has been slow. As of Friday, Zemke had no one posting the $50 starting bid. Brad Parnell, a Marine stationed in San Diego who returned from Iraq a few months ago, was faring better with two bids as of Saturday, the highest for $100.

Musgrave said she was not discouraged “in the least” that none have come close to the “buy now” price of $500, the amount a person could pay to automatically win the auction.

She said 13 potential bidders were “watching” the auction closely. That’s encouraging, she said, because there was no advertising or publicity for the campaign. “It takes awhile for something new to catch on,” she said.

Even more encouraging, she said, was that about five other troops had written to volunteer to be in future auctions. She hopes to hold them a few times a year.