Oldschool veterans like my grandpa and uncles and their friends love the Odyssey and its lessons.
The war never ends for the ones who fight.
It takes twenty years to come 'home.'
What I got out of Homer was darker, and more female lessons.
Men love war, and it hurts to kill. It hurts everyone.
It takes one son in a million to avenge his father's misuse by a corrupt king.
The patient and loyal queen knits by day and keeps her ears and eyes wide open and her mouth shut.
(For instance, I got two different emails today from four different individuals who are contributing to anysoldier as a result of the previous post.)
I want to ask Vanity Fair for a bulk rate for all the copies of the issue with this
story,
" It was at the LOGCAP office that deYoung saw how well KBR managers in Kuwait were living. They stayed in expensive waterfront hotels in Kuwait City and its environs at more than $100 a night per room. They availed themselves of hotel laundry service, even while KBR was paying outrageous prices to a subcontractor for laundry. And when they left their hotels, they didn't carpool or take buses. They'd requisitioned expensive-brand S.U.V.'s for themselves. DeYoung did some number crunching and came up with the figure of $73 million a year. That, she concluded, was what KBR was spending for its top managers in Kuwait City to live so well. More accurately, that was what U.S. taxpayers were paying-not including the extra 2-to-3-percent profit that came with the cost-plus system. (KBR says only a few managers are in off-base housing and that those in hotel rooms are routinely doubled up. DeYoung says the only people who stayed two to a room were men with girlfriends, "often the lesser paid Balkans girls.")
"What were the KBR managers actually doing there? Not overseeing construction projects, or kicking the tires of convoy trucks they'd brought in to supply the troops, or looking at blueprints for new army bases in Iraq. According to deYoung, they weren't doing any of that. They were sitting in their hotel rooms, or out on their waterfront balconies, giving the nod to subcontractors to do all the work. (KBR says it "self performs" some jobs and subcontracts others.) Once a subcontractor was hired, the KBR team had no idea whether goods or services were delivered, deYoung asserts. The team just paid whatever invoices the subcontractors submitted, and hoped for the best. (KBR calls this a "ridiculous claim" and says that all goods and services must be verified before invoices are paid. DeYoung says that's simply not true, and e-mails a blizzard of documents from her time in Kuwait to support her case.)" "
I want every person packing baby wipes and beef jerky for the 'troops' and feeling benevolent, to slip a copy of this issue of Vanity Fair in among the Stuff and People.
Knit shrouds, unravel by night, and buy time.
Welcome to Ben Allbright
