The regime's new spin: Troops poolside, eating steak and crab legs

[rainbow4321]

Is this their new recruitment attempt? 90% of this article has Iraq looking like a fun vacation destination or summer camp. With a sentence or 2 thrown in like: "others sleep in sweltering tents that are covered with mold" and "pools of spilled crude (oil) form black, reeking ponds".

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/061006dnintbaselife.32f033b.html

The lucky soldiers live in air-conditioned "cans" surrounded by concrete blast walls. The less fortunate get hot, moldy tents. They drink rivers of Red Bull and Mountain Dew. On Sunday nights they might eat steak and crab legs. For entertainment, they can buy bootleg DVDs of The Dukes of Hazzard for only $3.

Most FOBs have dining facilities run by contractors such as KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary. And most of the dining facilities feature an array of food. At a typical evening meal, diners can choose from several main courses, sometimes including baked salmon or fried shrimp. There are salad bars and fast-food grills. The dessert counter usually has a dozen types of cakes and pies and four or five flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream. "Today's soldiers would be hard-pressed to claim they could not get enough to eat," the Strategic Studies Institute noted.

For dining hall entertainment, big-screen televisions display sporting events or movies. For recreation, there are gyms at most FOBs, as well as rec centers with pool tables and board games.

<snip>

Though the military sees FOBs as a refuge for soldiers who go on patrols and face combat, many never leave the base. "I'm what you call a 'FOB-bit,' " said Sgt. Mark Howell, 27, from Denton. The term is used – not always kindly – for those who spend their entire yearlong deployment behind base walls. Sgt. Howell is the morning disc jockey – "Mark in the morning" – for American Forces Radio in Iraq. "I probably have the easiest job in the military," he said.

[Kutjara]

1. I can think of no punishment more cruel or unusual...

...than being forced to watch the Dukes of Hazzard. It's simply monsterous.

[pooja]

2. The food part is correct at least in the US

My brother-in-law said the food is really good. Maybe too good... took leaving to loose the weight he had gained while in.

[MADem]

3. It's always been that way--three hots and a cot

And the food gets way better when the CODELS or the press junkets go over there. When you have a bunch of sweaty, dusty Congressmen waddling around, they go all out with the menu.

[The Deacon]

5. When I Ate In A Mess Hall In Spain

We could always tell when the Inspector General was due for a visit - suddenly steak & lobster. This contrasted sharply with the menus at the end of the month when liver and onions were all you could get so the mess sergeant could get rid of all the liver he got "such a great deal on."

[Tab]

7. It's an old trick

I went to a private high school, many years ago (my town had no high school, so you could go to a regional school, or apply the average tuition to some other school). Many students there, though, came from elsewhere, and some were quite wealthy.

The dinners were often shit (Tuna Tetrazzini, anyone?) but magically before homecoming day or whatever suddenly it would be roast beef or something, so when the parents asked "what did you have for dinner last night", the students would say "prime rib" or "roast beef" or whatever it was.

As soon as visitation was over, it was back to the same old crap.

[babylonsister]

4. Read this and tell me what's more accurate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x91667#97625

[BlooInBloo]

6. I would think that massive unequal risk would lead to a LOT...

... of resentment...

Even more so if there are and patterns or commonalities to that inequality...

[Johnyawl]

8. The guys in the field always resent the REMFs...

...(REMF = Rear Echelon M*****F******), I don't care which war it is.

[Deja Q]

9. BOOTLEG DVDs? I thought only China had that problem.