Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan has a snack bar with a couple of 9 footers...the cues were horrible and there was no chalk when I was there...that was 2005-2006. An AZ'er on here (forgot who) deployed after that time frame and put out a call for help getting some stuff...lots of folks stepped up and sent cues, chalk, even trophies for tournaments. The problem is, unless someone is there full time taking care of it all, it kind of just rots away. The state of pool in recreation centers around the world is pretty poor, and I've been all over the past 26 years I've been in. The last place I was stationed that had a decent pool setup was Mannheim Germany back in the early 90s...about the time that they killed the 14.1 all-service championship. The guy that ran the rec center was a serious player and busted his a$$ to keep everything up.
When I was a 2LT (many, many years ago) at Fort Polk, the O'Club had four bar-boxes...the General's wife decided the tables hurt the image of the club and had the manager remove them. I lived across the street at the time and could walk over and play for hours, drink and walk home without running the DWI gauntlet. I quit the club the day after she had the tables removed and never joined an O'Club again.
As poor as pool is across the many military locations, I'd recommend focusing everyone's charitable instincts on the deployed locales, like Bagram AFB. Permanent bases like in Germany or Korea have staffs that can get stuff if there's interest, they really don't need help. I also think it would be cool for some pros to go on USO tours (they go to nice places, too, like around Europe)...they could contact the USO directly. With a little research, they could find a trip that hits places where they could put on demos, give lessons and just hang out with troops. Plus they'd be hanging with other celebrities, which is an experience in itself.
