At a family reunion, I met four distant cousing who are all in the US military. They each came in their dress uniforms, two from the Army, and two from the Navy. When I asked them their names, and where they were stationed, Terry and Tracy told the truth, but Lee and Loren lied. This was especially confusing because all four names could belong to either a man or a woman. Here is what they each said:

Male soldier:

1. The male sailor is Terry.
2. Tracy isn't stationed in Afghanistan.

Female soldier:

1. The female sailor isn't Terry.
2. Loren isn't the person stationed in Texas.

Male sailor:

1. The male soldier is Lee.
2. The female sailor is Loren.

Female sailor:

1. A sailor is stationed in Hawaii.
2. Tracy is stationed in Afghanistan.

Help me figure out who is who, and where they are all stationed (one is in Kuwait).

Loren - male soldier - Kuwait
Terry - female soldier - Texas
Lee - male sailor - Hawaii
Tracy - female sailor - Afghanistan

The way I came to this conclusion was by looking for inconsistancies indicating a liar. We know right away the male sailor is Lee or Loren, because he says the two liars are the male soldier and the female sailor. Only one of them can be a liar because they disagree as to whether Tracy is in Afghanistan. We can then easily find that the other liar is the male soldier because he says that Terry is the male sailor and we already found this to be false. Ok so now we know who the liars are and who's telling the truth.

Since we know the female soldier is telling the truth when she says that Terry is not the female sailor (who is also telling the truth) we know that Terry is the famale soldier and Tracy is the female sailor. Lee must be the male sailor since he lies about being the male soldier. This leaves Loren as the male soldier.

Ok...so where are they? Tracy tells us that she is in Afghanistan and that Lee is in Hawaii. We know the other two are in Texas or Kuwait (we are told so) and since Terry is telling the truth when she says Loren is not in Texas, Loren must be in Kuwait and Terry must be in Texas.
Edited on September 1, 2003, 8:17 pm

Posted by Jill on 2003-09-01 20:17:19