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DEL.ICIO.USBringing home the bacon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Stryker, Iraq — The mess hall here serves bacon for breakfast, ham for lunch and pork chops for dinner.
So how far does the Army have to go to get pork in the porkless Middle East?
Apparently a long, long way.
Photographer Curtis Compton and I have seen lots of cattle, goats, sheep, chickens and geese in Iraq — but not one pig.
It’s all in a name
An Army officer objected to his soldiers using “hajji� to describe Iraqis because he thought the term insensitive.
The officer’s radio call sign? “Assassin.�
What water shortage?
When I arrived at the shower tent on a recent morning, a soldier was already under the spigot in the stall next door. I showered, soaped, rinsed, dried off, shaved, brushed my teeth, flossed, got dressed, and when I left, this guy was still showering!
There’s no shower time limit at Camp Stryker. But water here must be purified, then trucked over extremely dangerous roads at great expense.
Soldiers in the field go for days, sometimes weeks, without showers, and Iraqi children beg for drinking water at the side of the road.
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