On Tuesday, during a stump speech in Greensboro, North Carolina, presidential hopeful Donald Trump implied that some soldiers in Iraq stole recovery funds delivered to the country in the wake of the Iraq War.
"Iraq, crooked as hell. How about bringing baskets of money? Millions and millions of dollars and handing it out? I want to know, who are the soldiers that had that job because I think they're living very well right now, whoever they may be," the GOP frontrunner said.
Trump's spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, later said that Trump was referring to Iraqi soldiers, not US soldiers.
A former Marine explains what soldiers did with all those "baskets of money."
As writer Eliot Ackerman responded, "You can watch ... the video and make up your own mind."
Ackerman, a veteran of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, penned a piece for the New Yorker in response to Trump's comments. Ackerman is now a novelist living in Istanbul, but he was a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps from 2003-2011, ending his career as a captain. He served extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, handling large sums of money.
From PRI's The World ©2016 PRI
