A Seventy Year Grudge

Planet Money:

The story starts when Russ Roberts, a George Mason University economist, started hearing about how veterans don't like the Red Cross. That struck him as odd, and when he asked about it, he always got the same answer: the doughnuts.
"And I thought, the doughnuts?" Roberts says. "What could that be?"
Go to any VFW hall, even today, and you'll get the same story: During World War II, the Red Cross had comfort stations for soldiers overseas, with free coffee and free doughnuts. Then, in 1942, the Red Cross started charging for the doughnuts. Soldiers have held a grudge ever since.
Turns out it's true.
  "It keeps coming up, that they were charged for coffee and doughnuts," says Susan Watson, archivist for the Red Cross.
The organization started charging only because the U.S. Secretary of War asked it to. British soldiers had to pay for their snacks, and the free doughnuts for Americans were causing tensions. So the Red Cross complied, after protesting to no avail. It didn't last long — for most of the last 70 years, Red Cross doughnuts have remained free — but veterans haven't forgotten.

I had never heard that before.  The best part of the story on the radio was that of all the veterans she interviewed who held a grudge against the Red Cross, none of them actually ever got charged for doughnuts.  So all these guys have been hating on the Red Cross because they thought they were entitled to free doughnuts, which they actually got, but they knew somebody or somebody told them about guys who had to pay for doughnuts?  Wow.