WüRZBURG, Germany — At the on-post Würzburg Furniture Store, branch manager Roger Woods has noticed a trend: He’s selling everything he has.

“Bedroom sets, mattresses and box springs,” he said, looking around the showroom for specifics, and giving up. “Basically everything.”

As one of the Würzburg-area businesses caught up in the tide of commerce that has rolled in with the return of thousands of 1st Infantry Division troops over the past month, Woods’ store has been an indicator of the type of spending the soldiers are doing.

Woods said he’s been moving a lot of large TV stands — because soldiers need a place to put their new big-screen and plasma sets — and doing a brisk business in delivering TVs to their new owners.

“We average probably two, three big screens being delivered a day,” he said.

Of course, with a new TV, a soldier will also need a coffee table for the remote and a place to sit — perhaps explaining the run on Italian leather couch sets the store has sold.

And desks are a hot item, he said.

“Because everybody’s getting new computers, I guess,” Woods said.

From haircuts to Harleys, 1st ID soldiers have been buying, buying, buying as they come back from their downrange deployment, bank accounts flush with hazard pay and incentive money, Würzburg-area business owners said this week.

Sales at Army and Air Force Exchange Service facilities in Würzburg are up 55 percent from the same time last year, according to Robert Koch, retail business manager for the consolidated exchange.

Many of the 12,000 returning soldiers have come back and “figured out they’ve got $10,000, $15,000,” said Maj. Simon Telian, who returned with the 67th Combat Support Hospital in January.

Telian, who has bought a Global Positioning System for his car and taken a vacation to Spain, Italy and England since returning, said the higher pay and lack of shopping options downrange mean a fat bank account for many soldiers.

“The money just piles up [in Iraq]. You get paid more and you spend less,” Telian said. “Especially with the yearlong deployments.”

Over the course of that year, an average single soldier might spend about two months’ pay on small expenses and bills, and squirrel the rest away, said Cpl. Steve Drefke, from the 1st ID’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, who returned last month.

That is, they save it until they get back, he said. “People have never had this much money saved up before, and they’re buying everything they’ve ever wanted,” said Drefke, proud owner of a new laptop computer.

For single soldiers, that means “electronics and cars,” he said, a point underlined by his shopping partner, Sgt. Travis Runnels, who on Thursday was buying electronics to put in his new car.

The excess money has led some soldiers to buy luxury items just to spend the dough, Runnels said.

But the flood of cash has been a long-expected relief for many of the on- and off-post business owners who cater to troops, and who used words such as “slow” and “survived” to describe the year the soldiers were away.

“It was really rough last year,” said Karl Salisbury, an on-post exchange car and motorcycle sales associate. People just weren’t buying heavily, and numbers dipped, he said, a trend also seen outside the gates of Leighton Barracks.

“Last year, you’d be lucky to talk to two or three people a week,” said Auto Exchange sales consultant Paul Brennan. “You missed the troops. You knew when they were gone.”

But last week, Brennan’s lot was teeming with browsers, and all around the post businesses were on the rebound.

“I tell you what, business is booming,” Salisbury said. “This month’s probably the best month since I’ve been here,” the four-year employee of the dealership said.

The hot item on Salisbury’s lot: The new Ford Mustang. Sticker price: around $25,000.

“I’ve never seen a vehicle sell so much,” Salisbury said.

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