My Boss at KBR: "The military is none of our fucking concern."

From Ben Carter:

I had been operating my own company in the fall of 2004, when my 20-year-old son suddenly died from a bad combination of prescription medication. This tragedy caused my marriage to end only a month later. With little reason to stay in Utah, I pursued the opportunity of going to work for Halliburton, because I had gotten word that Halliburton was looking for people with expertise in water purification to operate their reverse osmosis water purification units (ROWPU). I had extensive experience with a wide range of water purification technologies, and I was attracted to the idea of providing a valuable service to our soldiers serving in Iraq.

At the time, I was very excited at the prospect of being an employee once again, doing great things with providing clean safe water to U.S. troops and seeing some exciting places around the world. This was before I learned anything about Halliburton and their business practices.

If you recall, in late 2004 the war in Iraq was thought to be over after the declaration of "mission accomplished" by President George W. Bush. This impression was clearly wrong once I arrived, and I was sent to the base at Ar Ramadi. The talk around the water coolers was that the KBR camp there was getting hit on a regular schedule with rocket and mortar fire. This was a surprise to me since my recruiter had told me that I would be sent to the green zone in Baghdad. When I arrived in Ar Ramadi I was anxious to get to work right away. It was at the air base, Al Asad, that I got my first indication that things were askew with their water treatment plants.