Thursday, August 31, 2017
Constants and constants
It's always informative to see which topics required no explanation in an earlier era.
These two items from a 1954 issue of Aberree:
1. It was common knowledge that we were fighting CHINA, not RUSSIA, in Korea. The number of rounds was interesting and salient, the fact that we were fighting CHINA was uninteresting and constant. This common knowledge has been memoryholed by our forced delusion that we were fighting Russia in both Korea and Vietnam.
2. The Army used scrip for some purpose. Paying soldiers? Commissary, like prison? The fact was considered constant, and the unattractive ladies pictured on the scrip were var.... No, they were constant as well. See Susan B Anthony and Sacajawea. Or better, unsee them.
Ebay answers the question. The scrip was technically called Military Payment Certificates, MPC, and was used to pay soldiers serving in some foreign countries from 1946 to 1973. The MPC replaced an earlier use of regular dollars with special overstamps. (I remember those ... my father brought some home from his Navy service.) Both of the special currencies were intended to prevent soldiers from playing black-market games, because plain dollars were often highly valued in war-torn countries with unstable economies.
1. It was common knowledge that we were fighting CHINA, not RUSSIA, in Korea. The number of rounds was interesting and salient, the fact that we were fighting CHINA was uninteresting and constant. This common knowledge has been memoryholed by our forced delusion that we were fighting Russia in both Korea and Vietnam.
2. The Army used scrip for some purpose. Paying soldiers? Commissary, like prison? The fact was considered constant, and the unattractive ladies pictured on the scrip were var.... No, they were constant as well. See Susan B Anthony and Sacajawea. Or better, unsee them.
Ebay answers the question. The scrip was technically called Military Payment Certificates, MPC, and was used to pay soldiers serving in some foreign countries from 1946 to 1973. The MPC replaced an earlier use of regular dollars with special overstamps. (I remember those ... my father brought some home from his Navy service.) Both of the special currencies were intended to prevent soldiers from playing black-market games, because plain dollars were often highly valued in war-torn countries with unstable economies.Labels: constants and constants, scrip
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