Everett soldier who joined army for his daughter killed in IRAQ

[saigon68]

Source: By ROB PIERCY / KING 5 News

EVERETT, Wash. – The family of Army Private Michael Baloga, who grew up in Everett, says he has been killed in Iraq.

After graduating from Sequoia High School in Everett, Baloga worked construction. Then his daughter, Isis, came along. Wanting to give her more than he could at the time, he joined the Army.

On his Myspace page, Baloga wrote that two of his goals in life were to watch his daughter graduate and give his daughter away at her wedding.

"The whole reason he went into it was pretty much for his daughter," said Valade.

Read more: http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_072707WAB_private_baloga_killed_TP.b907bf9a.html

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Went Gambling at the Halliburton/Bechtel Crap table and lost

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. He joined the army knowing he would be separated from his daughter

and he claimed he joined for her?

Sorry this is very sad but it makes no sense.

[sandnsea]

3. money, health care, day care

sometimes housing. And it makes no sense to you? How can you not get it?

[bahrbearian]

6. I work construction in the Puget Sound Region , along with thousands

of others ,,I sure as hell don't get it either.

[sandnsea]

12. Depends on experience

It can pay $10 hr, or $25 hr. All depends on experience. It's also seasonal with no benefits. And, competition from immigrants can be huge in one town, and non-existent just a few miles away. I get it completely.

[QC]

18. Construction doesn't pay squat around here anymore.

There's insane building going on here, but most of the workers are illegals. That has driven wages into the basement.

[sandnsea]

20. I'm in Florence OR

If you have experience, some tools, and a contractor's license, you can make $20 hr here. No benefits though and I mean zip zero none; you're paid on a 1099. Otherwise, they all go through the temp agency and it's about $10-$12 an hour.

[QC]

21. The builders here bring in busloads of foreign workers,

pack them 15-20 to a small apartment, and pay them about ten bucks an hour and no bennies.

Then they sell the condos these poor people are building for a half million and up (way up). Meanwhile our own local workers can't find anything that pays enough to live on. And people wonder why there's so much resentment of mass illegal immigration!

[sandnsea]

22. They do in Eugene

Not as much here. We did have a roofer come through recently, with a big crew that just swarms a house and roofs it in 30 minutes and moves on to the next. I think they were illegals. So the pressure is here, but so far most local contractors are still using legal employees or sub-contractors.

[QC]

23. Here the contractors have gone whole hog for illegal labor.

Nothing much is done about it, because there are only two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for the entire Florida Panhandle, so the contractors get away with it. ICE has actually told local law enforcement to turn violators loose and ask them to report to the federal courthouse several counties over, since they don't have enough personnel to pick them up. Amazingly, none of them ever take themselves to jail, lol.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I agree with you.

Way back in the draft era, I knew a fellow who joined the Navy reluctantly. He got married, either before or after enlisting. Then his wife developed multiple sclerosis. He reenlisted. No one questioned his decision at all. He would never get health care like that in any civilian job.

[LeighAnn]

31. Wonder what kind of guilt trip it will cause?

She'll grow up blaming herself :(

[QC]

9. Ever been poor? n/t

[QC]

32. I really wish you would answer this question.

Don't mean to hound you, but so much of what you have posted here these past few years suggests that your own background is quite comfortable, so I couldn't help but wonder if you have ever seriously had to worry about where the money will come from.

My guess is that you haven't, but I would love to be wrong.

[QC]

33. The lower classes are just so silly sometimes!

Didn't he know he could just tap his trust fund?

[rocktivity]

38. He joined the Army knowing he could be KILLED in Iraq

and he claimed he joined for her? Did he think about THAT at all?

:shrug:
rocknation

[lvx35]

2. Doesn't seem like anybody who plays that table really wins. nt

[IndianaGreen]

4. No need for a draft when economic conditions are manipulated to fill the military ranks

Decades ago, high school grads would have found an apprenticeship at a factory, making good money with benefits. Nowadays those factory jobs have gone overseas, and there are few options for young working class men and women. The military exploits this situation by luring the future of our nation into a life of militarism, all the while the corporations profit from endless wars.

[PassingFair]

10. Don't forget the hefty "signing bonus" nt

:puke:

Enough to get most out of credit card hell.

[AndyTiedye]

5. ..

:cry:

[here_is_to_hope]

7. ...

:-(

[Fierce]

11. He worked construction?

Dude, join a union! I'd like to know what construction he worked.

[sandnsea]

13. Young kids are clueless

Unions do a horrible job letting young people know about training programs and even the existence of unions in the trades. The unions that they are familiar with, like food workers, are generally so worthless that they get a bad taste from them. Young men who don't want to go to college really do drift along aimlessly quite a bit these days. People are ready to chirp up with "college isn't for everybody", but they don't have anything in place to inform those who don't go what their options are.

[Fierce]

15. Some unions do, some don't.

I know the trades here (in MN) are starting to put a big push on, because the old guard is retiring and some big projects will really tax the supply of union labor. But yeah, some people just have no idea, and some unions do a breathtakingly craptastic job of getting the word out.

[sandnsea]

16. I've heard that too, I hope so

So many younger men just really haven't known what to do with themselves these last 10 years or so. I don't think people really understand what's happened to them.

[Fierce]

17. Women, too, I'd say.

nt

[sandnsea]

19. No, not so much

More and more young women are going to college, as is seen in the fact that more women are enrolled than men. At the local level, waitresses, retail, beauticians, massage, spas, beauty consultants - all young women. Hair cuts are running $40-50, that's $100 an hour if you're booked solid. Of course there are booth rentals to pay, but it's a living. And there's still room for women in the traditionally male jobs as well. I think young women can do better than ever before, provided they don't get pregnant.

[Doremus]

27. Don't know about your area, but haircuts in these parts are in the $20 range

Not only that, but it's a cut-throat occupation because there are simply soooo many beauticians.

Your income figures are also off. Unless they own the salon, beauticians split the take with the house. The cut depends on what they can negotiate, but usually it's 50/50 or worse.

It's backbreaking work with low pay and usually no benefits and I wouldn't suggest it for anyone in a one-income household ... unless they like having two jobs or still live with mom and dad.


BTW, women have been the majority of college students for a long time. It's not a new occurrence.

"Room for women in the traditionally male jobs..."

In our neck of the woods, there isn't room for more MEN in the traditionally male jobs. A new McDonald's can get hundreds of applicants, and the building trades and UAW are all but decimated.

The Rust Belt is no place for anyone looking for a job.

[sandnsea]

28. Well Ohio

Yeah, I imagine it sucks to have to try to make a living doing anything in Ohio. There and Michigan. I feel for you.

But things are better where I live, and they do pay a set amount for the booths. 40% of our town is retirement age, so there are plenty of women needing their hair done. I think the number of salons have doubled in the last few years, and everybody is still busy all the time. And women can still get jobs over men because of affirmative action. My daughter was a state park aid, which used to be a man's job. It's just a different situation than what you have I guess.

[ckramer]

14. Don't you think the same thing are happening in Iraq?

When one family member got killed, rest of family members mostly would want to do something about it.

[Beausoir]

24. Nice legacy for that daughter.

All this talk about "he did it for her!" is pretty sad.

[Radicalman]

25. He Could Have Made Better Money Perhaps If........

He'd turned to armed robberty, drug dealing, pimping or numbers running. And his chance of being murdered would perhaps have been less if he weren't in the killing business himself. He could have spent the money on making his little girl happy by buying her Barbie Dolls in military attire or military like video games which our Clusterfuck Country's kids so love. Oh!, I forgot, we're supposed to be supporting the troops of our glorious nations which has, including the effects of the U.S. led embargo, murdered over 2 million Iraqis 'cause we're spreading freedom and democracy and, besides, God is on our side.

[Beausoir]

26. That was not the point of my post.

Welcome to DU, by the way.

My point was....why link the daughter to her father's death at all? She had NOTHING to do with it. It cetainly was not her fault. But the headlines link her to it.

[QC]

29. Why didn't he just get some money from his trust fund? n/t

[QC]

30. Couldn't he cash out his 401k? n/t

[High Plains]

35. Why didn't he turn on his TV and watch the news?

I know you think anyone who disagrees with you must be a limousine liberal, but there are options other than joining the military in the midst of a war, and they don't involve trust funds or 401ks. Lots of people suffer from economic hardship. They don't all join the military. And maybe if they turn on the news and see this guy's story, even fewer will.

[QC]

37. Not so much limo liberalism as standard middle-class cluelessness.

That's pretty common.

About three years ago, a truck driver from Mississippi was taken hostage in Iraq. You might remember that. It led to one of the ugliest discussions I have ever seen at DU: lots of stuff about how mercenaries deserve to die and the like. Grave-dancing before there was even a grave to dance on.

But it turned out that the guy's dairy farm had gone under and left him destitute. He and his family had no insurance and his wife needed heart surgery. So that $100k for driving a truck for a year was an understandable temptation. Still, though, many people here insisted that he was an evil man who took the job because he wanted to kill "brown people." Surely he could have done something else, they said, apparently not knowing that few, if any, jobs in rural Mississippi pay enough for one to cover heart surgery out of pocket.

In many ways we have a poverty draft in this country. For people like many of my students, the military is just about the only way to get out of a dead end town and provide well for a family. It sucks, but there it is.

[Beausoir]

39. I will try again....why is this HER fault? All this "he died for her" talk is stupid.

He went, he served, he died. Not only is she fatherless, but she has a pretty big ration of guilt on her plate, due to the sick media in this country. At least that's what the media is making it into. It's the media that foists this sick shit onto the American people.

Is that clear enough?

Coming from a military family, I resent the hell out of the "trust-fund limousine liberal" shit that gets spewed here.

The war is bogus. Reality check...this guy didn't die for me, he didn't die for you. He didn't die for freedom. This guy died for GWB and Dick Cheney and their personality disorders and their lies and greed....it sure as hell wasn't his daughter's fault. I feel very badly for her.

Why I should have to defend that position, here at DU, is a real head-scratcher.

[Massachusetts]

34. "Wanting to give her more than he could at the time," he joined the Army.

RIP Troop
and condolence's to the family BUT.....

[kurtyboy]

36. Where the hell is Sequoia HS?

Terrible sadness falls on the State of Washington for the 76th time of the Iraq War.

But what is this Sequoia HS? Is that an alternative school? Of the public and private schools in the area, I don't know of a single one named that way. The closest phonetically and geographically is Shorecrest, which is decidedly not in Everett, but Seattle. Or perhaps Sultan, which is in the town of the same name, some 25 miles outside of Everett. Or Squalicum up closer to Canada in Bellingham? Sequim over on the Olympic Peninsula?

In the state of Washington, there is nothing even close to that name--unless you count Cedarcrest, Woodinville, Woodland, Oakesdale or other tree-related names. So either it is an alternative school, or somebody at KING tv can't do the simplest of fact checking.