Why are we in Afghanistan?

[Red Arrow]

Good friend in the Navy shared a villa with a buddy for $100 per month each.  Included a large house (villa), gardener, cook, maid, driver, utilities and cost of food.

Not in Virginia Beach in the early/mid 70s.

[JCnOwasso]

In today's labor market where could they find a job where the family is given substance pay, health insurance and other perks while the veteran get free clothing, free rent, priority food, pension's and a decent salary with plenty of help with what he is told to do?
In the over sea's environment he is a target for racial and radical groups but how would one feel if a foreign army was camped in their front yard.  He possibly is in less danger than if he was walking down the Tulsa streets after mid-night.

Spoken like a person who has never stepped foot in the service.  BAS rates are currently 348 a month, regardless of enlisted rank, or family status.  If you live in the barracks, there is a good chance you do not receive this since you use the "dining facility".  Health insurance? absolutely.  This is one thing the military does pretty well, however you are not treated by a doctor who has a practice, you are treated by a military doctor.  You better hope that they do not think you are making up stuff because you could get the scarlet letter of "malingering", even if their is something wrong.  But for the most part, I had 95% success with the military docs and I trusted most of my care with them, accept for my heart, which I went to an outside specialist for.  Free Cothing?  First sets of uniforms and boots were free, then you received your uniform allowance on your anniversary.  However, you still had to pay to have your dress cloths cleaned and pressed and at that time, your BDU's had better had a razor sharp crease.  Free rent?  eh, depends on how you look at it.  My 1+1 (share a bathroom) was approximately 145 sf.  If I were to live off base (which unless you were married had to be approved) I would receive my BAH, which depending on where you were, could be enough to afford something decent.  In my case, we still had to have a roommate along with that sizable $375 I was getting everymonth (10 years ago).  Priority food??? pancakes does that even mean?  Pension, yep.  You get 40% of your salary at the end of 20 years, which in most cases I heard about equalled about  $1100 before taxes.  Decent salary?  I guess if you were in one of the low skill jobs (but still important no matter how you look at it), it could be considered "decent".  However you need to remember that there were a lot of us who worked in proffesional type jobs earning the same amount as every other enlisted person.  I left the military and increased my pay by 100%.  Had better insurance and better possibilities.

[Gaspar]

Spoken like a person who has never stepped foot in the service.  BAS rates are currently 348 a month, regardless of enlisted rank, or family status.  If you live in the barracks, there is a good chance you do not receive this since you use the "dining facility".  Health insurance? absolutely.  This is one thing the military does pretty well, however you are not treated by a doctor who has a practice, you are treated by a military doctor.  You better hope that they do not think you are making up stuff because you could get the scarlet letter of "malingering", even if their is something wrong.  But for the most part, I had 95% success with the military docs and I trusted most of my care with them, accept for my heart, which I went to an outside specialist for.  Free Cothing?  First sets of uniforms and boots were free, then you received your uniform allowance on your anniversary.  However, you still had to pay to have your dress cloths cleaned and pressed and at that time, your BDU's had better had a razor sharp crease.  Free rent?  eh, depends on how you look at it.  My 1+1 (share a bathroom) was approximately 145 sf.  If I were to live off base (which unless you were married had to be approved) I would receive my BAH, which depending on where you were, could be enough to afford something decent.  In my case, we still had to have a roommate along with that sizable $375 I was getting everymonth (10 years ago).  Priority food??? pancakes does that even mean?  Pension, yep.  You get 40% of your salary at the end of 20 years, which in most cases I heard about equalled about  $1100 before taxes.  Decent salary?  I guess if you were in one of the low skill jobs (but still important no matter how you look at it), it could be considered "decent".  However you need to remember that there were a lot of us who worked in proffesional type jobs earning the same amount as every other enlisted person.  I left the military and increased my pay by 100%.  Had better insurance and better possibilities.

Back when Shadows was alive, $348 a month was a fortune!  You could buy a house and two buggies with that kind of scratch!

[Hoss]

Back when Shadows was alive, $348 a month was a fortune!  You could buy a house and two buggies with that kind of scratch!

You could get an oxcart with that as well.

And two saddles.  And a Henry rifle.

[Gaspar]

You could get an oxcart with that as well.

And two saddles.  And a Henry rifle.

All good investments. 

Throw a saddle on the ox, load up the Henry, and you're ready to fight off the reptilian hoard that only the chosen ones can see. 

[heironymouspasparagus]

Not in Virginia Beach in the early/mid 70s.

Subic Bay, Phillipines, 1971, 1972.

[heironymouspasparagus]

However, you still had to pay to have your dress cloths cleaned and pressed and at that time, your BDU's had better had a razor sharp crease.  Free rent?  

Still have to have the crease now - as stated by granddaughter and grandson in guard now.  He is in Kuwait on active, where it is somewhat relaxed...  She frets about that crease a lot.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Another reason to get out sooner...

http://news.yahoo.com/us-soldier-kills-16-afghans-deepening-crisis-164242200.html


We have no business being there any more.  Whatever reasons we had in the past expired long ago, but at the very latest, with this nonsense.  Anyone thinks he deserves protection from Afghan law?  Should he be turned over to them or try him in our courts?

[shadows]

You could get an oxcart with that as well.

And two saddles.  And a Henry rifle.

...
You also could buy a new Ford car for two months salary at that rate or one two years old for two weeks salary.  You could have bought a loaf of bread for a dime or less.  A silver dollar of metal could be carried in your pocked with ease. Today you would walk lopsided if you tried to carry enough of those silver dollars, which contained real silver, to the store to buy the 10 cent loaf of bread and a gallon of milk.   Isn't it odd that China drove the price of copper up to where the copper penny was worth it weight in copper?  We are taking care of that now.   What have we gained except decreased the value of a planned retirement?

[Hoss]

...
You also could buy a new Ford car for two months salary at that rate or one two years old for two weeks salary.  You could have bought a loaf of bread for a dime or less.  A silver dollar of metal could be carried in your pocked with ease. Today you would walk lopsided if you tried to carry enough of those silver dollars, which contained real silver, to the store to buy the 10 cent loaf of bread and a gallon of milk.   Isn't it odd that China drove the price of copper up to where the copper penny was worth it weight in copper?  We are taking care of that now.   What have we gained except decreased the value of a planned retirement?

took you a week to respond to that?  Are you and kraut timesharing on the library pc?

[patric]

Another reason to get out sooner...
We have no business being there any more.  Whatever reasons we had in the past expired long ago, but at the very latest, with this nonsense.  Anyone thinks he deserves protection from Afghan law?  Should he be turned over to them or try him in our courts?

Do we have to be dragged to the ovens and shown the bones inside, like what the Allies did with disbelieving German civillians?
Oh, but today, we call that "Wikileaks".

[shadows]

took you a week to respond to that?  Are you and kraut timesharing on the library pc?

No I lost my stick that I was pounding the hollow log with for that Indian friend of mine to forward it with his updated Atari.  Other than that I go back to the Tulsa Now to correlate the past posts in order to be aware of all related updates.   

[Red Arrow]

No I lost my stick that I was pounding the hollow log with for that Indian friend of mine to forward it with his updated Atari.  Other than that I go back to the Tulsa Now to correlate the past posts in order to be aware of all related updates.   

227,639 posts in 16,164 topics (as of my check a few minutes ago) is a lot of stuff to just scroll through.  I could understand a specific search and have done that myself but to just look through stuff... that's a lot of stuff, regardless of how much free time you have to waste.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Do we have to be dragged to the ovens and shown the bones inside, like what the Allies did with disbelieving German civillians?
Oh, but today, we call that "Wikileaks".

Apparently.

Nine kids killed - some of them in bed asleep!  What kind of disgusting maggot scum would do that kind of thing?  I do NOT care how stressed, tense, or PTSD'ed you are - NO excuse for killing children that way!  This has also destroyed his family and home - what are his kids going to go through now?  He11!

What should be done with the guy?  US law or Afghan law?


And we are also expected to believe that the burning of the Quran's was "accidental".  The only thing accidental was that the right wing extremist(s) who did it were caught.  General McCaffrey just made the statement that "Karsai is throwing gasoline on the fire every time something like this happens."  Gee.  Ya think??
Obvious by the way he discussed the burning that he doesn't think it's any big deal.

Get US Out!!  Now!

[Gaspar]

They are killing us out of hatred.  We are killing them out of hatred.

There is no sanity on either side of this conflict.

The reason we were there is gone.

Pack up and leave them to their own devices.