Thursday, November 25, 2010

When US GIs Are Stationed in a Foreign Land

US GIs are everywhere in the world. It sounds romantic and adventurous for the GIs. Maybe that is true, but it actually makes for a very complicated relationship between the countries involved. Here today I am going to take a second look from another angle at the case of American Corporal Robert Reynolds, who killed the Chinese Colonel Liu. The story floated out during the time of the incident was that they knew each other, that they were actually business partners. Their business was to use Reynolds' privilege to buy expensive goods from the PX, tax free, and then use Liu's connection to sell them outside on the Chinese black market. The problem was that the profits division was not to the liking of all sides involved. Neither government wanted the truth to come out; the case was then easily bungled. This is just one simple example of the kind of conflict which can occur when US GIs are stationed in a foreign land. These conflicts erupt all over the world where ever the US military is involved in situations besides their main purpose of engagement. The US should have learned by now!

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