By the end of 2007, Alexis was living in the USA. Readjusting to the States can be a huge letdown and even a culture shock after making as much as a thousand dollars a day as a defense contractor in the Persian Gulf. In Dubai, which boasts the longest bar in the world, you’d see the Americanos just arrived from Baghdad and Doha stumbling in at about 11 p.m. to splash out on single-malt whiskey or a Guinness stout and enjoy the eye-candy from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other stans passing themselves off as bleach-blonde Russians and easygoing Ethiopian ladies posing as exotic Eritreans and Somalis. Nothing’s real in Dubai, the land of mirages.
It’s all part of the pecking order, with Lebanese and Iranian women at the top of the desirables list down on through the former Soviet ranks, then the Chinese and last but least, the bottom-rung Eurotrash tourists. Reverse racism in the Gulf, under which brown, black and yellow beauty fetch more attention than white, is probably a reason why Aaron Alexis was so embittered on his return to the racial rightside-up United States.
The Rising Cost of Living
Alexis joined the Navy Reserves in 2007 and served until early 2011. Never promoted, he was a aviation electrician’s mate third-class, a grade with pay levels as low as the rank. The Navy Reserves is definitely not an officer-track opportunity or road to self-enrichment. Yet, during those four years, Alexis rented an apartment in Oak Hills, a high-end gated neighborhood of Fort Worth (Guardian, Sept.17) and on his many travels stayed at luxury hotels, including the Marriot in Providence, Rhode Island, which is favored by much higher-ranking officers.
What was the secret to a luxury lifestyle on a sailor’s budget? Answer: The CIA. The Agency routinely embeds its intelligence agents into the military Reserves, which provide weapons training, unlimited ammunition, base privileges, cheap beer, fast food, access to secure communications and free air transport to practically anywhere in the world. As a result, Navy and Marine Reserve units acting as the CIA paramilitary force often operated with better transport, superior firepower, more air cover and keener intelligence than regular Army units. (These points are based on my interview of a Marine reservist-CIA agent, who exposed the torture at Abu Graibh.) The Navy-Marine intranet, maintained by Hewlett-Packard, is the world’s largest institutional communications network. Bandwidth is never a problem.
