I remember well when living in Germany at a military base where my dad was stationed. I had exited the USNA, happily expelled, in 1971. After hitch-hiking across the country and back, I headed to my parents and siblings in Stuttgart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While living there on the base, I took a job at a German department store called Breuninger, the largest in Europe. I worked in the decoration department and helped with maintaining the show window displays. It was an artistic endeavor which was not beyond me, as I just move displays around under the direction for the creative decorators. It was for me a great opportunity to practice German which I was also studying formally in classes provided for military families at the base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the officers on the base had taken in two refugees that he had picked up while traveling to Africa. They had escaped from another country where they were under some oppression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(As it turns out, in reflection, it might have been due to the practice of illicit sexual behavior. I don’t know.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also made some money doing some house painting and employed the now-house-guest refugees. I was paying them in cash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a regular request of me by these gracious fellows. Although housed, fed, and employed, they were lacking something that they very much coveted. It was “that number.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They wanted to get social security numbers! Yes. One can live very well, it turns out, collecting U.S. social security while living in another impoverished part of the world!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, and how many aliens have come into the country to get “that number” and then collect a lavish salary in another country, paid for by Americans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
29 January, 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I remember well when living in Germany at a military base where my dad was stationed. I had exited the USNA, happily expelled, in 1971. After hitch-hiking across the country and back, I headed to my parents and siblings in Stuttgart. While living there on the base, I took a job at a German department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,30,56,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citizenship","category-lamentations","category-liberty","category-position-papers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8235,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions\/8235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelbray.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}