drinking in Iraq

[dirtracer24]

First of all thank you soldiers, marines, airmen, navy boys, nat guard, coast guard and anybody else I may be forgeting for your service in protecting our country.
Second, my brother is in iraq right now has a 21st birthday coming up real soon. He's told me that all they have to "drink" is some nasty gut rot iraqi wiskey. I know brothers thirst would be much better quenched by some jagermiester. I have his address and eveything where ive sent other care packages too, but im am a little worried about puttting a bottle in the mail and him and I getting in some kind of trouble. ive thought of ways to disguise it but i am ultimately concerned with trouble. If anybody has any thoughts about this I would love to hear them and if he does get busted what kind of trouble are we talking about
Thanks again
dirtracer24

[adrenalinemedic]

Possession/consumption of alcohol is against General Order No. 1 and they WILL take rank AND pay if he gets caught.

He would get in less trouble accidently shooting a civilian than he would getting caught with booze. That's what happens when politicians-in-uniform run the show.

[dirtracer24]

does that count even when hes in his "off time" im not sugesting he drinks while out doing his business. I know they have some wiskey available to them(i dont know where there getting it) but he said its sucks. also is General order No.1 only come into effect because he's deployed or is it anytime that he's on base.
thanks again, I learning that military law is quite a pain in the ***

[C.W.M.V.]

Do NOT send him booze...you will get him in deep ****. Why you ask? Because he will drink it with his buddies, and Joe (junior soldiers) cannot keep his damn mouth shut. Chain of command will find out.

Its not like it used to be. I remember back in OIF 1 we would get whiskey from the local kids. They would come up to us saying "Mista mista! you want Biere, hashish, whiskey? 5 dolla!" The whiskey was "Black Man Whiskey" and had a gold embossed picture of black faced vaudeville actor on it. That stuff could strip CARC paint! Our NCO's knew, and as long as we were good to go on mission they left us alone. Not anymore, too many soldiers have screwed it up.

does that count even when hes in his "off time" im not sugesting he drinks while out doing his business. I know they have some wiskey available to them(i dont know where there getting it) but he said its sucks. also is General order No.1 only come into effect because he's deployed or is it anytime that he's on base.
thanks again, I learning that military law is quite a pain in the ***

ROTFLMAO at bold!
What does he do? MOS and service? For most combat arms there is no "off time" you are always on standby to roll out.

[NorCalDustin]

I agree with the above.

Save the booze for when he gets home... Send him some stogies

[nick]

Don't send him the booze. With the level of idiocy in the military now, you'll get him in deep, umm, problem. God forbid we offend the sensitivities of the people selling us booze by drinking it.

[OneSevenDeuce]

Don't send him alcohol at all.

From personal experience, if he REALLY wants to drink, alcohol is available in Iraq. I was offered, I don't know how many times, by Iraqis. Never did it. Probably should have. But no, don't cause him more trouble than need be by trying to send him some stuff. They check mail.

[QQQ]

An idea:

Send your brother an I.O.U. for a beer/other drink for when he comes back to the States!

It'll give the kid something more to look forward to and still show him that you remembered his 21st.

Hell, send him five I.O.U.'s. Or ten.

[armygunsmith]

Save it for later and party extra hard when he comes home.
Like the other posters have said, people do drink over there, but immature soldiers screwed it for everybody. Personally, I could never drink when my life depended on me being on the ball.

[Stockton]

Here is what is going to happen if he does get caught or someone rats him out. CID will come in with dogs and find everything...everything. The booze, steroids, porn, videos, and any other illegal contraband will be found. Those soldiers and just about everyone in the chain of command will get relieved. The company will probably get locked down and another company or unit will have to double up to cover that companies sector until CID finishes their investigations. Soldiers will do time.

Will it happen that exact way...maybe/maybe not.... I do have first hand knowledge of it happening the way I described it. Buy him a beer/whiskey when he gets home.

[Rob454]

I usually make care packages and I never include alcohol. Ive sent it overseas before to buddies but not in combat zones. I just send stuff they can use or fun stuff. last time I sent a DVD player and a bunch of DVDs and all new Surefire flashlights each with its own box of batteries.. That one really hurt the fun pocketbook AKA gun fund for two months or so. Ive sent cigarettes, candy, chips, reading and crossword puzzle books, letters, and stuff they ask for like chew some of the guys like skoal some like others . One guy liked gummy worms so I sent him 4 huge costco packs of it. I usually go to costco and get the stuff then break it up in smaller packages.so they just email me stuff they want and if I have the money or can do some horsetrading then I get it. ( I usually try to get what they want) I know some of those guys have s****y families who dont give a flip. I jsut wanna make sure they know someone does.
Depending on where he is stationed some of that stuff may be better than alcohol.

[Lower86]

+1 If he gets caught, his whole company will probably get the shakedown.
GO1 covers a very expansive array of no-nos, booze being one of them, but some of which are ridiculous (Like CA gunlaws)and may actually be helping a unit, such as meds given out by medics without prescriptions, unissued ordnance not on the books (always helpful to have extra frags/flashbangs/AT4s), etc.

I would wait til he gets back and celebrate properly. Til then, I havent been out there since last year, but they should still sell whiskey in the coke cans

[adrenalinemedic]

does that count even when hes in his "off time"

If he's somewhere that GO1 applies, it applies 24/7/365. Qatar/Dubai...slightly different story...lol

also is General order No.1 only come into effect because he's deployed or is it anytime that he's on base.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but I'll try and field it anyway: If hes active duty, it should only apply when he's in theatre, not in transit or when hes back at his home station. But that also depends on his chain of command. When we were coming back from Iraq and stopped in Shannon, Ireland, our company commander wouldn't let anyone buy any good Irish whiskey, even to have shipped home, because he was afraid of GO1.

[C.W.M.V.]

Possession, by any one, at any time, in CENTCOM AOR, is against GO1. After a couple of rapes and several drunk driving fatalities, this was expanded to include non-military government personnel, including civilian contractors working directly for government agencies. I'm not necessarily saying it's enforced by non .mil, but technically it applies to them as well.



I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but I'll try and field it anyway: If hes active duty, it should only apply when he's in theatre, not in transit or when hes back at his home station. But that also depends on his chain of command. When we were coming back from Iraq and stopped in Shannon, Ireland, our company commander wouldn't let anyone buy any good Irish whiskey, even to have shipped home, because he was afraid of GO1.

Same here. Thats a *****y little terminal. They tried to tell a plane full of grunts that we couldn't smoke, HA!

We commandeered the mens room and it became our smoke shack. The smoke was so thick I literally couldn't see from one wall of the bathroom to the other.

[OneSevenDeuce]

When we were coming back from Iraq and stopped in Shannon, Ireland, our company commander wouldn't let anyone buy any good Irish whiskey, even to have shipped home, because he was afraid of GO1.

That is totally lame. We stopped in Germany on the way back from Iraq and our CO let us have 2 beers or two shots. Of course 2 quickly turned into 3 or 4 or as many as we could manage during the 45 minute layover. He didn't care though. Best damn drink of my life.