Intervention Magazine has an interview today with an anonymous soldier who is by no means a supporter of this president and his policies. In the middle of the interview comes this exchange:
I was there when President Bush came to the [Baghdad] airport. The day before, you had to fill out a questionnaire and answer questions, that would determine whether they would allow you in the room with the President.
What was on the questionnaire?
“Do you support the president?”
Really!
Yes.
Members of the military were asked whether they support the president politically?
Yes. And if the answer was not a gung-ho, A-1, 100 percent yes, then you were not allowed into the cafeteria. You were not allowed to eat the Thanksgiving meal that day. You had an MRE.
What’s an MRE?
Meals ready to eat. We also call them “meals refused by Ethiopians.”
So, even among his own troops, the Commander-in-Chief has to pre-screen his soldiers to avoid any encounter with political opposition.
This unknown soldier may have missed out on the turkey photo-op, but at least he knows that his MRE wasn’t taking the food off anyone else’s plate. The same can’t be said for those soldiers who passed the political litmus test and got to dine with the surprise guest.
It seems that Event Source, one of Halliburton’s sub-contractors may have to stop serving hot meals to troops in Iraq because they haven’t been paid by Halliburton. Event Source claims
“When you get stuck out there for $87 million,” explains Event Source Chief Executive Officer Phil Morrell, “it’s a question of economics.”
In an interview with NBC News, Morrell says he’s already laid off employees in the United States and soon will have to feed sandwiches to the troops, instead of hot meals, because his company is running low on money.
