IRAQ NOTEBOOK: GIs are losing their joe

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the ‘Pentagon’ (DoD? Gannett?) has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

Read all about Fair Use here. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.

unhappycamper summary of this article: So the Iraq adventure cost the US taxpayer around $1.152 trillion dollars in direct costs since March 2003.

The tsunami of heath care problems (PTSD, disfigurements and missing limbs to name a few) will continue to grow.

Can someone remind me why we invaded in the first place? Perhaps the original name for the invasion and occupation offers some clues: Operation Iraqi Liberation.




By LARA JAKES
Associated Press
May 14, 2:27 PM EDT

But as the Dec. 31 drawdown deadline nears, the post exchange retail shops have stopped restocking the newest iPods and Wiis. The PX in Basra in southern Iraq has even limited how many bottles of shampoo and body lotion each customer can buy in the ebbing war, which economists estimate has cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $12 billion monthly since 2003.

[Loudmxr]

1. For a moment there I thought they were losing their nickname.

Whenever I go to the Philippines I always get tagged with the nickname "joe". As in G.I. ... When in fact according to certain British soldiers and constabulary I am a "Mic".

I found it tragically amusing when visiting Hill 120 on Leyte, the island that MacArthur returned to. And so do I. That the mannequins depicting American soldiers are all white. I told the kids around me that there were also brown soldiers too. Some with the names Morales and even...Marcos. They were Latino.

But no Blacks. Because the US forces were segregated then. Then I tell them that is different now and I come from Los Angeles County the most different different place on the planet. 13% Asian. Like them.

There are no words I have to describe the feeling I have when I visit Tacloban City where MacArthur planned the eventual downfall of the Japanese empire. It is an honor to stay just two blocks from there. Also to stay in a bay side residence that was a Japanese outpost whose family was thrown into the camps for the duration.

I am getting weepy. I really like being called "Joe"