The Political Economy and Social Reality of
A friend of mine has five sons and two daughters. One of the daughters returned from Iraq in October; she still won't talk about what went on there. Now one of the sons, a real "Joe Soldier" boy, "Soldier of the Month" and runner-up for "Soldier of the Course" at basic training at Fort Benning, who is an E-6 I think, something like the position of Staff Sergeant that my father held in the newly created Air Force in Korea, has a brutal, frightening, bizarre, and hilarious story to tell, of official corruption, routine cynicism, opportunistic thuggery, and vicious bureacracy. When he noted some of the missing manifests, the huge volumes of money and stuff being poured down the desert rathole we have created to prop up a rotten and bloated system of producing vomitous, his Company First Sergeant came after him with a vengeance. Now he is fighting to stay out of the brig, to stay alive until his reassignment orders come through sometime this month. This is "Catch 22" times "Apocalypse Now" in the making. What is he returning to, here in the sunny, funny land of Prozac and Viagra and pink studded vibrators in a weirdly pathetic dance of death? Ahhh. Stay tuned.