Green Zones: A Map of the US Military's Golf Courses

[Judi Lynn]

Green Zones: A Map of the US Military's Golf Courses

From California to the Korean DMZ, the Pentagon runs nearly 200 golf courses.

—By Eric Wuestewald and AJ Vicens

| Thu Jan. 16, 2014 3:00 AM GMT

The United States military is undeniably massive. In 2012, the Pentagon spent 4.4 percent of our GDP on defense, with hundreds of billions going to contractors for assorted weapons, equipment, and essentials. What is not known is exactly how much money funds the military's international golf habit. Mother Jones has found that the Pentagon currently operates at least 194 golf courses and 2,874 holes of golf worldwide. Hover over any flag to tee up more information about the location, name, and size of these courses.

More:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/pentagon-military-golf-courses-map

[shedevil69taz]

1. A large percentage of military personnel

enjoy golfing, also swimming, horseback riding, skeet shooting, tennis, basketball, and softball just to name a few. These facilities are built and maintained by each services Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) program. My service (army) gets most of it's funds to do these things from the revenue generated by the Army and Air Force Exchange Services (AAFES or PX) stores.

Most of the golf courses are open to the public for a minimal fee (usually much much lower than comparable courses in each area)

[yurbud]

2. I don't begrudge the military anything they do to take care of the troops

[Aristus]

3. The driver of the tank I crewed in the Army used to go golfing with the company's first sergeant

every weekend.

I thought that was a little different. For a lot of tankers I knew, weekend recreation meant getting as plotzed as possible, and spending Sunday throwing up.

[jmowreader]

4. This golf course shit was really old two years ago

This is a Humvee. It costs $65,000, weighs six thousand pounds, and gets worse fuel economy than a semi. It's so wide half the fleet has had the front-right corner knocked off thanks to driver error. The floor is 1/16" thick aluminum that can be perforated by sharp rocks thrown up from the road - it happened to me on several occasions. And it is one of the loudest military vehicles we have. Our troops would be safer if we just stuck 'em in old Volkswagens and sent them downrange but we keep buying these deathtraps.

(I'm not going to post a picture of a wounded warrior, but we're putting a million-plus into each of the thousands of guys who came back from the sandbox with traumatic brain injury incurred, in part, by going downrange in the subject of the last paragraph.)

Golf courses are different: They are "non appropriated fund" activities. That means they have to run like businesses and pay their own way, and if they are not paying their own way the Army has no qualms whatsoever about firing everyone who works there and bringing in new people who can make them profitable.

Suggestion for the anti-golf-course crowd: Let's fix the actual problems the Army has before we whine any more about things that aren't problems at all.