Surplus sell-off: Changing times hits America's Army Navy Surplus store

Apr. 28—TRAVERSE CITY — Past the camouflage jackets, flags of the world, belts of ammunition and teddy bears stands Jan Anderson, owner of America's Army Navy Surplus in Garfield Township.

But not for much longer.

Anderson is ready to retire after 44 years, and the business is soon to be shuttered. There are plenty of reasons — her husband, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam, died in 2006, and her son and daughter both live hours away. Her mom lives in Alpena, so Anderson is hoping to move closer to her to help out.

"But things never seem to go as fast as you think they might, so I might be here for a while," she said.

There's more to the decision, since finding the "mil-surp" that people actually want to buy is getting harder all the time, Anderson said. In-demand items include backpacks, camping equipment and anything in woodland camouflage. Also, what she can find costs more than before.

So Anderson is winding down, selling everything at a discount and digging out old collectibles she was previously too reluctant to sell, she said. That includes some old swords and some teddy bears sporting clothes for the different military branches.

Customers are coming around, too, with one caller telling her she wants to drive up from Chicago to show her son before the store's gone.

"It's just sad," she said. "A lot of people who came in as kids bring their kids in now just to look around."

But she's still buying surplus here and there, including some dark-green cots someone recently brought in. Purchasing gear from "off the street," as she put it, brought in some of the few mil-surp items for sale that isn't U.S. military — an Iraqi military uniform hanging on one wall, a Thai military camo jacket on the other.

Buying from and selling to veterans helped Anderson build relationships over the years, she said. She's always tried to help them out by offering discounts, and in other ways. Some return the favor, bringing in gear to sell but asking for nothing in return. She recently gave one woman $20 for a bunch of items offered for free, figuring she should help the woman pay for the gas.

Anderson said she does this because she believes veterans and their families should get more support than they do — just her opinion, she stressed.

"I think that's just the way it goes, but they definitely do come in," she said, later adding a few currently serving stopped in when they were missing an item from their check-in list.

Last week, three customers milled around the store on South Airport Road near Barlow and LaFranier roads. One, Elmer Manville, stopped by to look for more pins and other insignia for his hat. He pointed to a "Vietnam Veteran" license plate frame he purchased the last time he was in.

The son of a World War II veteran, Manville joined the army in 1962, he said. His 20-year career included a tour in Vietnam and a few in postwar South Korea — that's where he was in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The military was on high alert for 72 hours afterward.

"We weren't sure what was going to happen," he said. "That was a little scary for an 18-year-old."

Another customer, Avery Wrigley, was on a road trip in part for his 20th birthday with a classmate from the Great Lakes Boat Building School in Cedarville. His grandfather served in Vietnam, and Wrigley likes to collect military surplus and antique store finds. His interests are broad, and stems from his love of history — his feeling is that collecting pieces of the past keeps that history alive, he said.

Web sales are among the many ups and downs Anderson has seen since moving the store from Oscoda to Traverse City in 1986 as Wurtsmith Air Force Base started to close, she said. It's something she never figured out; a customer might see something in her shop they liked, go home to think it over, then find something cheaper online.

But she always prides herself on selling the real deal, and there's a lot to be said for touching and trying used clothing and goods, Anderson agreed. Some online retailers will use pictures of a pristine item, then ship something in considerably worse condition than the description would suggest — the occasional review for online surplus sellers bears that out.

Anderson's husband Mike was fond of military gear, she said. But, unlike Manville, who said he liked the discipline of Army life and stayed on until 1982, Jan said Mike Anderson didn't like people telling him what to do. Hunting and fishing was more his thing. She showed a picture of him with his beloved hunting dogs.

That was before cancer cut Mike's life short.

When Wurtsmith started to close, the prospect of tourism traffic convinced the Andersons to move to Traverse City, she said. The area has changed a lot since then, and Cherryland Center's decline hurt by cutting into traffic past the shop. But the corner of Garfield Avenue and South Airport Road seems to be picking up again.

She hasn't found any takers interested in buying out her shop, even as she asks other surplus dealers, she said. The buyer would get the full inventory, plus all the display cases and furnishings her husband built over the years — the building is rented.

So she's selling it off one camo jacket, instruction manual and shoulder patch at a time. There's plenty left, but she was down to her last ammo can last week, and already sold two of three M-72 light anti-armor weapon tubes.

Manville, of Traverse City, said it's sad to see Anderson's store go.

"She's got a lot of good stuff for veterans, and it's a whole lot easier coming in here than trying to order it," he said.

Record-Eagle reporter Travis Snyder contributed to this article.