The result, first on display in the Balkans, was a kind of McMilitary experience in which deploying abroad resembled a heavily armed and perilous package vacation. “The first person to greet our soldiers as they arrive in the Balkans and the last one to wave goodbye is one of our employees,” a Halliburton spokesperson explained, making the company’s staff sound more like cruise directors than army logistics coordinators.21 That was the Halliburton difference: Cheney saw no reason why war shouldn’t be a thriving part of America’s highly profitable service economy—invasion with a smile.
