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chuckventimiglia 11-Oct-05, 08:45 |
 What is POOR??Poor. Especially people in the US and other developed western countries. I have always wondered if they really know what being Poor really was? We tend to define being poor as having little money which is usually relative to the country where one is living. Here in the US to be considered poor a family of 4 has to make less than $28K/year. In other countries that would be considered living like royalty. So what is poor? In 1973 I was a Captain in the Air Force. My job was EOD. Explosive Ordnance Disposal!! The bomb squad!! What ever you want to call it my job was to either keep things from blowing up or blowing up things whatever the mood of the day. I went to 2 years of munitions and EOD training beginning in 1965 prior to be turned loose in 1967. In 1973 I was in [country un-named]. I was there in support of our bombing of Cambodia and Vietnam. I was in charge of a range. Whenever our planes returned with ordnance that could not be dropped or was a problem of sorts they would try to drop on the range. The range was also where we disposed of ordnance that was captured, defective etc etc. When I first got there I surveyed my responsibility and noticed people living on the range. They lived in huts made from our refuse. Our wood, cardboard etc. They were affectionatly called "range rats." I thought they were poor. They got $$ by picking up the scrap metal that was left over from our blowing up piles of bombs and munitions etc. I remember quite well a pile of napalm tanks that we piled and were to burn. We set that stack to burning and could only get to within 100 yds or so because the heat generated was so intense. I saw whole families of these "range rats" go up to that pile of napalm with long poles and hooks to pull out of that stack the aluminum "hardbacks" that each naplam tank had. This was valuable to these poor people. Again being poor is only about money, no. Read on!! After first arriving I was genuinely concerned about these people getting hurt during my blowing things up. I had a [unamed country] Colonel assigned to me as my liason and also to act as an interpreter. After first arriving we had a typical blow of about 20K lbs of scrap bombs etc. I noticed the people that lived on the range about 100 yds or so from my blow hole hiding in the tall grass. I would not ask that Colonel to tell those people to get further back. I have seen metal from one of our blows go over 3 miles, so 100 yds behind grass is not good. We continued our work preparing for the detonation. After we completed our preparation and evacuated back I again noticed those people too close to the blow hole. Why I wouldn't ask that Colonel to do anything because I was told by my predecessers that those people would be shot if I complained too much. I did not look to see where they were. Did not know if any of them got hurt. I would not ask that Colonel to do anything. Now that to me is POOR!! Your life is worth nothing that is the essence of being poor in some places in the world today. Even though I am talking about 30+ years ago I am sure there is much poverty like that today. |
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poor You are also right about the cost of human life when a government send tanks into a square to kill unarmed people protesting. Or 3 million people dead in the killing fields of Cambodia because Pol Pot decided that they were communist/anti government insurgents! Or the Union Carbide plant at Bopal which was obviously unsafe and is continuing to poison generation after generation! Or a nuclear power station blowing up and still killing people many years after it happened. Sadly 30+ yrs after your experience Chuck the value of a life does not seem to have increased if anything it has become cheaper. |
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chuckventimiglia 22-Oct-05, 06:37 |
Yes, the value of human life has...... humans than 30 years ago. Third world countries seem to know a lot about having kids than they know about taking care of what they already have. I will use Mexico as an example. It is a country rich with oil, has beautiful beaches and a very large tourist income but yet the government is so corrupt that the biggest source of revenue is the money that illegal Mexican aliens send back to Mexico from the money they earn in the US. There seems to be something wrong with that scenario. |
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anomalocaris 22-Oct-05, 15:04 |
BOMB MEXICO!!! |
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chuckventimiglia 22-Oct-05, 15:09 |
I wish we could bomb Mexico!! would then be responsible for fixing it up to a condition better than it was before. |
