Military's Dirty Secret

Good column on Town Hall.

Having witnessed this twice in the past year. I'll relay my experiences.

In Korea, we went to a club called the Golden Gate. It was right off base and had a lot of Filipino girls. We went there a number of times and I met a gal named Revelyn. Sweet enough gal. Fluent in about 3 languages. She told me a bit about how things worked there.

Typically, the girls are committed for a full year. They or their families get a lump sum of cash for this commitment from the girl. Then she spends the year in Korea being a "jiucy girl" (named for the overpriced juice drinks we have to buy for the girls to get them to sit with us). Basically they are confined to an apartment about 8 of them share and "work," where they sit in skimpy outfits with us and dance in skimpier outfits on the stage. As far as I know, sex is a rare occurrence and frowned upon typically in those establishments. Guys who get too friendly are thrown out quickly.

In Spain, we were in downtown Sevilla and ended up in a club called "American Show." This was a lot more like what is described in the article. There were 3 of us and we all sat down. Quickly 3 really attractive girls sat down with us. They were Romanian. I forget the name of the girl I talked to but she was really pretty and obviously intelligent. But the economic situation in Romania is so poor, a lot of the girls end up where they were, in a club, dancing topless and inviting guys into the backroom for a lapdance or "more."

I only paid my cover charge to get in and bought nothing else. I just spent my time telling this girl how she was too good for a place like that. I felt pretty dirty and heartbroken for the women in this place.

Whatever you think of protitution, a woman voluntarily prostituting is different from one who's basically sold into it, which is, more or less, what was going on here.

I felt like a child does when taken to the pound. I wanted to take one of these gals to the US just to show them that life had hope and there were other things to see.

Anyway, in times like we are in, rarely is a critical word spoken of the military without people snapping back quickly (I can certianly be guilty of this). But this author is right. Those of us in the military are complicit to a high degree as well.