The Military-Leisure Golf Complex

[Echo In Light]

The Military-Leisure Golf Complex
By Nick Turse

Pentagon elites and high government officials are tee-ing off at taxpayer expense at hundreds of courses all over the planet.

The following is an excerpt from Nick Turse's new book "The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives" (Metropolitan, 2008).

Back in 1975, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) decried the fact that the Department of Defense spent nearly $14 million each year to maintain and operate 300 military-run golf courses scattered across the globe. In 1996, the weekly television series America's Defense Monitor noted that "Pentagon elites and high government officials tee-ing off at taxpayer expense" at some "234 golf courses maintained by the U.S. armed forces worldwide." In the intervening twenty-one years, despite a modest decrease in the number of military golf courses, not much had changed. The military was still out on the links. Today, the military claims to operate a mere 172 golf courses worldwide, suggesting that over thirty years after Proxmire's criticisms, a modicum of reform has taken place. Don't believe it.

In actuality, the military has cooked the books. For example, the Department of Defense reported that the U.S. Air Force operates 68 courses. A closer examination indicates that the DoD counts the 3 separate golf courses, a total of fifty-four holes, at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., as 1 course. The same is true for the navy, which claims 37 courses (including facilities in Guam, Italy, and Spain) but counts, for example, its Admiral Baker Golf Course in San Diego, which boasts 2 eighteen-hole courses, as a single unit. Similarly, while the DoD claims that the army operates 56 golf facilities, it appears that this translates into no fewer than 68 actual courses, stretching from the U.S. to Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

Moreover, some military golf facilities are mysteriously missing from all lists. In 2005, according to the Pentagon, the U.S. military operated courses on twenty-five bases overseas.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/82009/

[Joanne98]

1. I got to get this book! K&R!

[Squatch]

2. Military golf courses are operated with NON-appropriated funds

...that is to say, their funds are raised through activities that include, among others, the PX/MCX/NEX/BX (military exchanges...basically department stores), etc. Taxpayers do not foot the bill for these MWR (morale welfare and recreation) activities...their operating funds are self-generating.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

4. sshhhhhhhhh...facts schmacts...

I'll never get to play Benning again...

sP

[Squatch]

5. You should check out the military courses in the NCR

The South Course at Andrews is the only military course to have been on the PGA tour and the greens fees are only $30!

[ProdigalJunkMail]

6. I doubt I will ever make it to Andrews

but I used to love going to Benning with my dad...what a beautiful course! And you CAN'T BEAT the greens fees!

ahh the memories...

sP

[Turbineguy]

3. Anyone ever been to

the Congressional Country Club?

Pretty nice.....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Brothels would be more popular, cost less, and raise morale more.

Unless GI's today are very different than they've been throughout history.

[msedano]

8. Who needs brothels when you have "temporary wives"?

The Status of Foreces Agreement (SOFA) spells out the rights local women have when they shack up with GIs. Admittedly, my info dates back to 1969-70 when I served with the 7th of the 5th ADA in Korea's 8th US Army. When a soldier took a local woman as his main squeeze she had rights to a decent place to live, regular food and goodies from the PX, and other comforts. The fellas passed on their Yobo to a buddy when it was time for the leaseholder to DROS (date return from overseas).

As for the golf courses, don't get me started. When processed into the country, the orientation told us the Army maintained a golf course down at 8th Army Hq and any of us remotely stationed cannon fodder could show up and get a free round, no green fees. So we, mensos that we were, believed this propaganda. One day a bunch of us organized a trip down to Seoul. We headed to the golf course where we walked into a wondrous sight. A huge clubhouse, anglo women dressed to the nines having lunch with waiters and china service and all the trappings of home. Gad, we were happy and planned to shoot a few holes then sit down for a real meal with fruit, and meat, and fruit, fresh fruit, wow, fresh fruit and salad.

So we walk up to the desk to request our starting time and the fellow in charge kicked our asses out of there because we weren't members. He laughed in our faces when we protested what we'd been told during orientation, that we got free greens fees and were entitled to play a round. I believe I still remember his exact words, a courteous, "get the fuck out of here." Full disclosure: he did direct us across the street where we could buy a bucket of balls and a driver and hit a few golf balls.

Morale? That's funny. Click the links below to see more of the action back then. Also, if you enjoy reading, find the Martin Limón detective novels set in Korea back a few years. Completely mindblowingly accurate depictions of what a GI's life is like in the ROK.

ate, mvs

[tkmorris]

9. Do you really have a problem with these golf courses?

What do you expect our military men and women to do when they are off-duty anyway? Sit in their rooms? Go get plastered?

[jberryhill]

10. And swimming pools, and gyms, and ping-pong tables....

Every dollar spent on a golf course is a dollar not spent on bullets.

The Navy probably has a zillion ping-pong tables.