Lisa Horn/Stars and Stripes. Slot machines, which attract $2 billion in betting at bases overseas, are a feature of the enlisted club at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
When Carrie Beth Walsh and her two toddlers landed at the airport in Seoul, South Korea, last year, there was no sign of her husband, an Army pilot who had been transferred there six weeks earlier.
He eventually showed up in a taxi, broke and unprepared for his family's arrival - no rental car for the drive to his base, no apartment, no credit cards in his wallet that were not already up against his loan limits. "He was making more than $60,000 a year," Ms. Walsh said. "But we were always broke."
She soon learned why. Her husband, Warrant Officer Aaron W. Walsh, had pumped more than $20,000 into the Army's own slot machines on bases in South Korea. Last month, his marriage and career shattered, Mr. Walsh, who is 33, resigned from the Army to avoid a court-martial on desertion charges stemming from his gambling habit.
Military gambling is a big business. About $2 billion flows through...
Robert, alcohol is a soldier's, besides. Perhaps the soldiers should have regular presentations about, drugs (alcohol), gambling, and illicit sex, from their chaplains? The only thing I heard discussed in the Army was about illicit sex, and the diseases that could be caught. This talk was given by a company officer, though. This was probably deemed important enough, because sick soldiers would interfere with military operations.
Military life has to be made less of a drudgery and more interesting to it's members, how you do this is something I have no quick fixes for.