U.S. Marines go hungry (begging for food from Iraqis)

I'm shocked. I know about the lack of equipment. I know about Halliburton serving non-potable water. But not enough food? Please say this isn't so.

By the way, the link did not work for me.

"They sent him to destroy a country against his will, something he would not have chose to do, to create devastation. And they forgot him there, for most of the year, and this was the first year of the war, from March 2003 to March 2004, he lived in devastated conditions without enough food and water."

http://vetgulfmarch.org/article.php?list=type&type=28 (from Day 6)

Not a well-known one, but legitimate.

I googled "scripps howard news service" and included 'bias' and 'fraud' and got nothing in the first 2 pages.

Many articles, but no problems.

People in this administration need to be dragged out their offices and slapped senseless. :grr:

the fate of the villain in the movie Van Wilder comes to mind.

Sadly, the needed materials are probably impossible to find for an Iraqi civilian.

Edit: wait, there's another gag in that movie that doesn't require such sophisticated ingredients...

Maybe she can check out the reliability of this report.

Nevermind... it came up after 5 tries...

Pull up your bootstraps!

now I can't get the page back, it was there the first time I clicked it.

DAMMIT! All that money going over there, for who? I know who, it's just beyond infuriating.:grr:

See this from awhile ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x91667#97625

My son is a Marine, on his 2nd tour now. He has consistently commented that the food on the base is excellent, and that there is plenty of it, too. Sure, when they're on patrol they eat MREs, which aren't great, but they're ok.

His outfit also has all their body armour, and factory armoured vehicles.

Or out in the al Anbar boonies, at a 'Camp Ethiopia' where the guys look like Ethiopians by the time they're relieved. Nothing but MRE's for weeks.

My son did it last year. Everybody in his platoon lost too much weight. And it was not baby fat - these were Recon Marines.

:patriot:

I still stand by what I said.

May 03, 2006

Living large at ‘Campus Victory’

By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — Referees whistle fouls during the opening game of a night basketball league. Soldiers mill about fast food joints, waiting for Pizza Hut to call their orders over the blare of pop music. A soldier and an Asian worker chat in the shadow of a blast wall.

Explosions periodically rumble in the distance.

Here at Camp Victory, which some soldiers jokingly refer to as “Campus Victory,” the war seems farther away than the distant blasts — even though the sprawling base near Baghdad International Airport is the headquarters for the U.S. military in Iraq.

Elsewhere in Iraq, many of the 130,000 American troops live in spartan conditions and exchange fire almost daily with insurgents. Hundreds of Marines in outposts along the Syrian border go weeks without showers or hot meals.

more
http://armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1748066.php



I'm not contradicting you or your son - just saying that there are areas where things are different. IIRC, the al Qaim/far west area didn't even get mess halls until last year. And that's ok, there were probably good tactical reasons for some of that, and, hey - it makes 'em tougher and more dangerous, right?

:evilgrin:

Too bad he's starving and endangering everybody else.

would love to go there for a good meal and some body armour, maybe they could get a few decently armored vehicles as well!!!:-)

he also told me the food on base was good. Unfortunately, he wasn't on base often. He lost more than 20 lbs. Was very thin when he returned both times. He also had body armor, which he actually didn't always wear - as he should have. It limits mobility. The vehicles weren't always adequate, though. There have been numerous accidents.
He didn't lose weight due to lack of food, there were always MREs, but due to the long hours and the heat. He said his appetite was down.
(and he's packed on quite a few pounds since he returned from his second tour...most of it muscle and a little bit of a belly which he's been teased about)

especially comparing a "base camp" situation with the folks in western Iraq.

Common sense says that conditions will be different at different places. The stories of inadequate body armor and non-armored vehicles are well documented, and on an anecdotal level, I work with the father of a Marine, and the talk of "no armour" vehicles for the first year or two was *not* a joke; his son is a combat medic who served in Fallujah.

many of them say they don't get enough food, that they have to walk long ways to get it in the heat and they need snacks for their missions. Do NOT base what your son says on the experiences of ALL OUR TROOPS

I can't really see how we can doubt these sources. Scripps-Howard and Providence Journal are standard MSM sources, the reporter has some certification because he is carried by them, and the Marine, Nick Andoscia, is unimpeachable as far as I am concerned. The story may not have been communicated 100% correctly through all the steps in the chain, but there really is no reason for doubt about the fact that one Marine complained to his mother about the chow.
Which is good enough for me.
Somehow, though, I suspect it won't be good enough for some rightwing maroons. Can't trust the soldiers when they say stuff like that, just when they say liberals suck, dontchaknow.

2 meals a day isn't exactly starving. Are they supposed to be gaining weight? Hell, most of them lost more than 10 pounds in boot camp.

are still maturing.
They need the calories from 3 squares and snacks, and I fully expect the government to supply them what they need.

.

hard ass , what in the world is wrong with people , have you been there and seen what is going on , maybe some of the troops are getting what is needed , and i'm dam sure ther are alot that don't get what is needed , it sounds to me like you just want to jump on someone's post just for the hell of it , chill out and try to pay attention , you may learn something new here if you open your ears

it's probably just representative that the people in our volunteer army have non-homogenous experiences with food. One man's ceiling is another man's floor, etc.

As far as I am concerned, however, if we're gonna ask these young folks to put themselves in harm's way for us, I think we should be making darn sure not ONE of them has anything to complain about regarding their food. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that's too much to ask.

Two meals a day isn't exactly starving, but we are putting their lives in danger - three meals seems appropriate.

about the troops being down to one meal per day.

:headbang:
rocknation

openly said, before the invasion, that the troops were not adequately supplied, especially for a long and/or opposed engagement. Not surprisingly, things have not changed at all since before day one.

I just plain DON'T WANT to believe this one.

If it's true I imagine freeps will say things like "two meals are plenty".

Can it really be that we in this nation, and our elected leaders are so masochistic that we're going to continue to keep these schmucks in office?

Are we really THAT demoralized at this point?

The War Preznit really, REALLY cares for the troops.......really.....no kidding....

"OK.....Rubber Turkey for everyone!!!!"

Surprise chickenhawk souffle.

Excuse me while I go mutter in the corner. I really hope this whole thing is a bad dream.

that fucker used the trops for a fucking photo opp!!

and are there really Americans left that want to make excuses for that fucker????????????????

fly

Find more sources on the same subject. It seems a little far-fetched to me that, if it happened in the first place, it is more than isolated incidents caused by temporary supply chain disruptions.

young people into harm's way are going to have to be more careful about temporary supply chain disruptions, so they don't get branded as bad to the troops. I don't think that would be such a bad thing.

TOOK ME A BIT TO FIND THIS IN MY FILES..BUT I HAVE THIS ARTICLE FROM DEC 2003

IF LINK DOESN'T WORK PM ME I WILL SEND YOU FULL ARTICLE THAT WAY...

i remember reading this and it made me sick...blood in their food..dirty food..and we were soi over charged by KBR for this for our troops??

so much for republicans having the frigging nerve of chanting.."support the troops" they are nothing but coward fuking filthy liars! they never did and never will support the troops..they just send them to die as little lord pissy pants cannon fodder ..for greed!

FLY


http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?page=article&id=1404

Halliburton-KBR Serves "Dirty" Food to US Troops in Iraq
Dec 14, 2003

Pentagon warned Halliburton-KBR on "dirty" food service



The Pentagon repeatedly warned contractor Halliburton-KBR that the food it served to US troops in Iraq was "dirty," as were as the kitchens it was served in, NBC News reported Friday.



Halliburton-Kellogg Brown and Root's promises to improve "have not been followed through," according to a Pentagon report that warned "serious repercussions may result" if the contractor did not clean up, the television network reported.


The Pentagon reported finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in four of the military messes the company operates in Iraq, NBC said, citing Pentagon documents.


The report came as President George W. Bush fended off Pentagon reports that Halliburton-KBR overcharged 61 million dollars for gasoline it sold the military in Iraq. Dick Cheney ran Halliburton for five years until becoming vice president.

but tainted food is fundamentally different than not enough food. I remember seeing the story on tainted food before. Maybe I missed previous ones on the lack of food. I'll leave it at I hope you're wrong, but I can't be certain.

don't believe it..i have read this in army times..and many military rags..but freaking americans don't want to believe it??

wow..i am sick of our own..they love to say support the troops..too damn bad its so easy to say,..but they do nothing to make sure the troops are supported..they just blindly support this bullshit!

it infuriates me..can you tell..i get in a rage...

i fucking hate these people who say support the troops..if they were supporting the troops they would be getting them out of lord pissy pants new kingdom...

fuck we can build an embassy bigger than the vatican but we can't feed our troops or protect their trucks and humvees..how fucking fucked is that????????????

a very angry fly

I emailed a friend in Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) a link to this thread this morning, because I'd heard her talk about her son going hungry. This is from an email I just got back - she cut and pasted this from an email to someone else so I could post it here:

"he did not explain what was really going on, but he asked for food, and sounded so hungry. Then he was at the stupid prison, and they did not get food there because it was too dangerous, he would never say at the time but I think for a large part they were getting 1 MRE and 2 liters of water a day. He could not get the food I sent him because KBR would not deliver the mail either. I could not understand this and finally figured it out at the time, that the reason he was not getting food or food in the mail because KBR was not doing what they were paid for. I threw a fit at the time, and many other families were in the same shape. ... Even on his 21st birthday, he was sitting at the prison with nothing, while boxes from me and his wife sat up at Balad. He paid an Iraqi worker to smuggle in a melon for him, you should have heard how happy it was getting that melon, it made me very sad.

An angle I have been thinking about this that many don't that you might want to pass on is how this situation contributes to abuse by US soldiers in Iraq. Everyone at the prison was sleep deprived and without adequate food and water for a long period. I think soldiers who were patrolling etc. at least had some more access to buyiing local food etc., but they were pretty much stuck where they were, and the practice of Iraqis selling food at the gate was stopped, bringing food in was not supposed to happen according to the commanders of the prison. So to me, this certainly contributed to the abusive behavior, if you are under those conditions you simply are going to stop caring at all. At the time, and this is when you were still there, we were agitating some about conditions, but truthfully we did not just want better supplied soldiers, we wanted them out of Iraq, so we did not carry it too far.

But I am still very mad. One of the most upsetting things that ever said to me was telling me how the prisoners ate better than the soldiers. And probably had somewhat better conditions than those who were actually guarding the prisoners. He was mad because he said the prisoners got real cooked rice. He hated them for it, although I am not sure how well the prisoners ate, but in his perspective they got rice and he didn't. Rice is what poor people survive on. So I think it is important not just that soldiers are not being supplied, but the effect this has on the Iraqi people as well, it simply aggravates the growth of an abusive mentality."

So how exactly does this happen?

The soldier is asking for tuna, for pete's sake, not junk food. He's not even asking for a hot meal. These men are burning calories, they need to eat.

The Marines motto "Semper Fidelis" means always faithful, it's fucking tragic that our pathetic excuse for leadership and their assorted courtiers in Washington cannot return the favor.:grr:

If this doesn't turn even the most ardent Bushbot against him what will?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1097907

I saw a documentary the other day where the soldiers were served ice cream, cake, and other fine food at an average cost of $20 per plate. It was a Halliburton kitchen.