HOW MANY U.S. SOLDIERS DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A LATRINE?

HOW MANY U.S. SOLDIERS DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD A LATRINE?

(AlterNet, Lynn E. Davis, Staci L. Pettyjohn)

(Tim Laming, Thomas Kuhn, Maher Osseiran)

(Biswaranjan Mohanty, Asian Times, Frazer Chronicle)

 

Ferreting out figures from the government and any department therein is like pulling a tooth from an old hound dog…..pretty much impossible. So you can imagine the daunting task I faced in my research for this blog. To get to the point that I am at…..in a fog, has taken me several weeks. At the start of this project I was totally in the dark…..so now, I at least see shadows.

 

I wanted to be able to talk at least with a kind of clue about the subject of how many military installations that the United States maintained world-wide, and would have liked to get a ball park number of the troop strength overall on foreign soil. To say the least, I got the Capitol Hill run-around, and the Pentagon two step.

 

What I finally came up with was information from individuals who had various sizes of axes to grind, or those writers who wanted to sensationalize their prose. On newsy topics such as wars on foreign soil, clandestine activity, and the number of sites and troops necessary to carry out these activities, my effort was a mighty one, plus the fact that I had to take the information with a huge grain of salt.

 

What I did discover was provocative, intriguing and maddening…..mostly all at the same time, the figures that I gleaned and decided to use for this blog are at best a (hit and miss) statistics, but I have a feeling that I got closer to the true figures than most.

 

Now I understand that military installations and the number of troops who fill out their detachments at these places need to be on the Q.T.  That said, you’d think that a simple phone call to a Pentagon information person would get kind of an idea, but I didn’t.

 

It came down to what do you have to hide, I’m just a citizen here…..trying to get a little information with regards to where my tax dollars are going. And what kind of an image, (on my behalf) are you portraying, which, by the way, has a direct reflection on me!

 

I did not want the number of jets on the (tar-mac), the number of aircraft carriers floating in the Persian Gulf, or the armament placements in the mountains of Afghanistan. Just some general figures so that I could relay that information to my readers.

 

THIS IS WHAT I DUG UP…..PARTLY

There is a United States African Command, (SUAFRICOM) which was authorized on December 15, 2006, and activated October 1, 2008, and although their headquarters is at the Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, staffed by 1,300.  There are in addition 3,600 plus soldiers and civilian personal that are stationed in Africa, England, and Florida.

 

Why the U.S. is in Africa…..to strengthen our security cooperation with Africa and create new opportunities, to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa. African Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa.

 

 

Al Udeid Air Base is a military base in Doha, Qatar also known as Abu Nakhlah Airport, and is host to foreign coalition personnel and assets. The United States Central Command, headquarters for the No. 83 Expeditionary Air Group RAF, and the 379^th Air Expeditionary Wing of the USAF.

 

From fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2012, the United States Congress has appropriated and authorized the spending of $495.6 million, and that was through 2012, so I’m sure that the amount spent now has broken the half billion dollar level.

 

There also is a professional medical partnership with the Congo located in Muanda, where the Democratic Republic and U.S. soldiers and health care professionals train the Congolese in medical readiness operations known as MEDRETE.

 

THE COSTS OF KEEPING SOLDIERS BOOTS ON THE GROUND

And I suppose you thought this was going to be a freebee, well hell no, it cost around half a million dollars to keep just one soldier going during the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan as well. The costs can be summed up in one word…..support.

 

Headquarters management, specialized skills, equipment, in area medical treatment, (post military medical care is not factored into the cost,) and a whole array of other costs, training, extended leave time, and special equipment. The overall cost to the United States taxpayer for the war(s) on terror will cost the United States in excess of $5 trillion dollars.

 

The United States is at any given time supporting more than 1300 military installations and facilities, in more than 150 countries around the world, deploying a staggering 172,966 of its 1,372,522 active duty personnel. Many of the remaining personnel are deployed in combat zones in the Middle East, as part of the war on terror.

 

OLD WOUNDS DO NOT HEAL

The Second World War has been over in Europe since May of 1945, since August of 1945 with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, yet the United States maintains 36 military bases in Germany, Italy, and Great Britain, and 18 more in the Asian theater.

 

The billions that the U.S. spends every year is getting…..to many people around the United States intolerable. Our war making habits are starting to wear really thin, not only on the citizens, but a large portion of the world as well.

 

How many soldiers does it take to build a latrine…..as many as Congress and the White House can appropriate!

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!