Whoppers, Dairy Queen sundaes and the latest movies will soon disappear for U.S. military personnel serving in Afghanistan, according to a blog posting by Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall discussing changes to morale, welfare and recreation facilities on U.S. bases there.
In an effort to put more focus on fighting the Taliban, the military is cutting back on “non-essentials” in Afghanistan, Hall announced on the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan blog this week. Hall is the command sergeant major for ISAF.
On large U.S. facilities such as the Kandahar and Bagram air bases, that includes closing restaurants such as Burger King, Dairy Queen, Orange Julius and Pizza Hut, dropping first-run movies from base theaters and cutting the amount of canned and bottled imported from the States, Hall writes.
“This is a warzone – not an amusement park,” he writes.
“Supplying nonessential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupplied with ammunition, food and water,” Hall says in the blog posting.
if they are going to ban junk food, they need to kick out all the movie vendors who sell hadji / pirate movies in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. The 50 Billion Dollars made a year Pirate Movie Industry and probably 1/2 of that is made in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan!
If these military leaders are going to be tough on their troops, then start having NCIS, CID, OSI and DCIS start enforcement / arresting troops for purchasing pirated movies. 1/2 of the distributors are probably insurgents anyway, so why are we helping fund an illegal industry?
There were movie vendors all over the Green Zone last time I was there, kicking out Junk Food dealers is a minor problem and none of that money ever went to the enemy….