Soldier commits suicide, ban on military 'slots' considered...

[PCIntern]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/15/military.gambling/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bill in Congress seeks to eliminate military slot machines overseas that take in $130 million a year, mostly from soldiers.


Aaron Walsh's addiction to military slot machines ruined his Army career and led to his suicide.

1 of 2 The bill's sponsor, Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tennessee, named the bill after Army Warrant Officer Aaron Walsh, a decorated Apache helicopter pilot who became addicted to gambling on military slot machines.

Walsh eventually was discharged from the Army. He committed suicide after several failed attempts to break his addiction. The Defense Department uses slot machine revenues to pay a small portion of its morale, welfare and recreation programs.

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It seems to me that these poor soldiers, who've been asked to fight and die for what virtually everyone admits either publicly or privately is a failed policy - if you want to call it that - some might prefer completely-fucked-up-catastrophe (but then again, it's 'just a matter of semantics") should have to fund their own morale programs via the sure-loser-proposition of slot machines.

The Ancient Greeks had no idea that when they coined the term 'irony', that it could possibly be this far developed. Next, they'll have a wood shop wherein they get to build their own caskets. Come on, declare victory and just COME HOME. Mr. President, you might get a chance to save your own Party, you know, the one who stood lockstep with your 'recount' and your declarations of war and higher Constitutional Privilege.