The sandbag is a ubiquitous part of any military installation. Designed as a simple expedient to building fortifications of any scale, they are also used as door stops, simple dams, bases (on our softball field), and countless other uses. And the sandbag is so very simple. All you need is some bags, a few shovels, and a few Soldiers to do the filling. Or so I thought. My step-father was an artilleryman in Vietnam. He was assigned to a small firebase just one mile south of the DMZ for a little over a year. When he first arrived at his outpost, he spent many weeks filling sandbags. How unfortunate he wasn't an artilleryman today.
This afternoon, walking back from lunch, guess what I saw? Yes, sandbags, but they weren't being filled by troops, they were piled high on three flatbed tractor trailers driven by contractors! You got it, there are one hundred and fifty thousand or so Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines in this country and we have contractors filling our sandbags. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad some poor PFC isn't out there in 100+ degree heat, but still, contractors filling sandbags? No wonder this war has already cost us over $500 billion dollars!
Cheers, Pearl
