"We had steak and lobster dinners every Sunday, and not enough armor,"

[elehhhhna]

Tammy Duckworth, an IAVA PAC endorsed candidate, and Iraq veteran, receives a very positive profile in the LA Times. This part of the story helps hit home why Iraq vets' voices are needed in Congress:

"We had steak and lobster dinners every Sunday, and not enough armor," said Duckworth, who is a major in the Illinois Army National Guard. "I didn't go to war expecting lobster. I would have happily exchanged it for better armor."


http://www.votevets.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=49

[blm]

1. Bush's payoff to meat and fishing industries?

At jacked up prices after middleman Halliburton, too.

[Ian David]

3. The Moonies largely control the lobster industry

Sushi and Rev. Moon
How Americans’ growing appetite for sushi is helping to support his controversial church


By Monica Eng, Delroy Alexander and David Jackson
Tribune staff reporters
Published April 11, 2006

On a mission from their leader, five young men arrived in Chicago to open a little fish shop on Elston Avenue. Back then, in 1980, people of their faith were castigated as "Moonies" and called cult members. Yet the Japanese and American friends worked grueling hours and slept in a communal apartment as they slowly built the foundation of a commercial empire.

<snip>

Moon founded his controversial Unification Church six decades ago with the proclamation that he was asked by Jesus to save humanity. But he also built the empire blending his conservative politics, savvy capitalism and flair for spectacles such as mass weddings in Madison Square Garden.

In a remarkable story that has gone largely untold, Moon and his followers created an enterprise that reaped millions of dollars by dominating one of America's trendiest indulgences: sushi.

<snip>

True World Foods' Alaska plant processes more than 20 million pounds of salmon, cod and pollock each year, the company says. Its International Lobster operation in Gloucester ships monkfish and lobster around the world from a 25,000-square-foot cold storage facility that is among the largest on the East Coast.

And it is again in an expansionist mood. True World recently opened up shop in England and established offices in Japan and Korea, setting its sights on the world's biggest market for sushi.

More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0604sushi-1-story,0,3736876.story

[blm]

8. Half this nation's fishing industry is controlled by Moon and GOPbots are

fine with it. They'll be pleased to know that Moon, thanks to his 40+yr alliance with the Bushes, also now controls the world's largest fresh water aquifer.

Moon intends to outdo the "loaves and fishes" story in his quest to prove that Jesus was actually a failure and he was sent to finish the job of saving mankind.

[Karenina]

6. Mercury-laced lobster

and beef of questionable origin. SUPER.

[Ezlivin]

2. She was supposed to save the lobster shells to make her own armor

Jeez. Didn't any of these officers watch McGyver?

[ariellyn]

4. I have a coworker in Iraq who also said they eat lobster and steak

all the time. They make dangerous trips once or twice a week where they dodge land mines and IEDs in tanks that won't protect them (two of his crew have been killed)--but hey, I guess lobster makes up for all of that. :sarcasm:

I pray for his safe return.

[Ilsa]

5. Thank God it wasn't frog legs. For someone with injuries

like Duckworth, the irony would be too great.

(I am assuming everyone has seen that cartoon of frogs exiting a restaurant kitchen on crtuches and in wheelchairs.)

[tbyg52]

7. Higher profit margins than on the body armor, no doubt. nt

[SoCalDem]

9. What a powerful recruiting tool.. Can't afford red Lobster, son?

Join up , and we'll feed you lobster:eyes:

Seriously though, a constant complaint that people had of the military life was bad food.. I guess this is the "carrot".. Unfortunately the stick is now a BOMB..

Volunteer military has done away with a lot of the "grunt" duties that were a natural part of working one's way up the ranks. people really DID peel potatoes, clean latrines, and do all those grubby jobs,..

And to think that with a mere $900 Brazillion no-bid contract or two to Halliburton, KBR, Bectel, et al...the young soldiers can now eat lobster and not have to do those grubby jobs..

Just think of what that money would be in terms of actual life-saving equipment for the soldiers.. Somehow, "Give me lobster or give me death" does not quite cut it :(

[peacebaby3]

10. Hmmm...my husband was there from Feb.'03 - Apr. '04 and had neither.

He lived in a tent, slept on a cot with 6+ other people in the tent, and used a self-made port-a-potty. He used to love for me to send him the tuna in a pouch because the MREs they had most of the time get really old and the KBR food he said wasn't edible. He went one time and managed to get a hamburger and said he couldn't eat it because it had flies all over it.

They've supposedly built some facilities there now and of course life in the green zone is very different. I guess that's where all of this is happening.

[elehhhhna]

11. Yep. The ulta luxe spa called the Green Zone.

the guys we know who were outside the GZ had barely enough to eat. The GZ is where the bigshots hang out.