Remind Me Again: How Bad Must People's Lives Really Be to Drive Them to Join the U.S. Military?

[queerbychoice]

"Last Christmas, Mike Corcoran sent his mother an unusual Christmas list: He wanted night-vision goggles, a global positioning system and a short-wave radio. Corcoran, then a Marine sergeant in Afghanistan, wanted the goggles so he could see on patrols. They cost about $2,000 each.

According to an Army internal report released earlier this summer, many ground troops like Corcoran decided to dip into their own pockets to get the equipment they needed to fight in Afghanistan and in Iraq."
from "American Troops Forced to Buy Own Wartime Gear"

The U.S. Military has a really clever racket going on here. Put people's lives in danger, then supply them with inadequate equipment. Of course they'll be willing to spend their own money buying better equipment when their lives are in danger. Never mind that the portion of the U.S. population that serves in the military tends to be the very poorest in the country, and never mind that the U.S. government is also saving money by charging them $8.10 a day for hospital food each day they spend hospitalized from battle wounds, cutting their veterans disability benefits after they become too badly wounded to keep serving, and deporting them as illegal immigrants only after they've finished risking their lives for the government.