US bases run on a segregated underclass of third-country nationals

Evidence

On many bases, an even lower class of segregated housing exists for people termed “third country nationals.” These are the citizens of countries other than United States and the host nation of the base, who frequently cook, clean, and keep the physical infrastructure of bases running every day. Most often, they are Filipinos. At Gitmo, the Filipinos live in dormitories that usually have four bunk beds to a room; Jamaicans have slightly better housing, formerly occupied by U.S. troops. At bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of the contractors have been from Nepal, Bangladesh, and as far away as Fiji. The journalist Sarah Stillman described them as “the Pentagon’s invisible army: more than seventy thousand cooks, cleaners, construction workers, fast-food clerks, electricians, and beauticians from the world’s poorest countries who service U.S. military logistics … Filipinos launder soldiers’ uniforms, Kenyans truck frozen steaks and inflatable tents, Bosnians repair electrical grids, and Indians provide iced mocha lattes.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 438

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s theme of how US bases abroad exploit cheap foreign labor, paralleling arguments about harm done by the base system explored throughout this book and echoing the diamond-trade and reputation chapters about stratified labor regimes.
• SHARE: The ‘Pentagon’s invisible army’ statistic and the vivid roll call (Filipinos laundering, Kenyans trucking frozen steaks, Indians pouring mochas) is a striking detail for anyone writing on military outsourcing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 438