"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" Kathleen Hopwood said Tuesday from an Army base in Germany, where she waited to watch President Bush's speech while worrying about her husband in Kuwait. "I've got three kids to take care of and twice a month, as soon as I get his paycheck, I have to spend $60 on toilet paper and wet wipes to send to him," Hopwood said. "I never expected that."

When I first heard about this from Kathleen's mother, Jayne Pusey, of Sunrise, I couldn't believe it.

"Neither could my husband," said Pusey, 47, a paralegal. "He was a Marine in Vietnam, and he said they used to get cigarettes with their rations. Things have changed. When I see my government can send $15 billion to Turkey or billions to Israel, but then they don't even take care of our own troops' most basic needs, it's mind-boggling."

You figure a country that is so capricious about waging a war would at least have the decency to adequately provide for the 300,000 troops that are doing the dirty work. You figure a military that boasts about its expensive toys would make sure the little things were covered. You figure a Pentagon that could spend $200,000 on a fancy set on which to conduct its news briefings wouldn't put the squeeze on the Charmin.

But, as Kate VandenBossche, a Marine lieutenant and public affairs official at Camp Lejeune, N.C., explains it, toilet paper is one of the personal items that troops are expected to provide for themselves. Doesn't matter if they're at home base or halfway around the world in a war.