NYT: Camp Liberty, Iraq "has the vague feel of a college campus"

[Rose Siding]

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq - First Lt. Taysha Deaton of the Louisiana National Guard went to war expecting a gritty yearlong deployment of sand, heat and duress, but ended up spending her nights in a king-size bed beneath imported sheets and a fluffy down comforter.

She bought the bed from a departing soldier to replace the twin-size metal frame that came with her air-conditioned trailer on this base in western Baghdad. She also acquired a refrigerator, television, cellphone, microwave oven, boom box and DVD player, and signed up for a high-speed Internet connection.

"We had no idea conditions were going to be this great!" said Lieutenant Deaton, 25, the public affairs officer of the 256th Brigade Combat Team and an ambassador of the exclamation mark. "My first thought was, oh my God! This is good!"

As much as modern warfare has changed in recent decades, so has the lifestyle of the modern warrior - at least the modern American warrior on base.

Camp Liberty, one of the best-appointed compounds in the constellation of American military bases in Iraq, has the vague feel of a college campus, albeit with sand underfoot, Black Hawks overhead and the occasional random mortar attack.

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/13/international/middleeast/13soldier.html?ei=5094&en=80d7670b5eba1f6a&hp=&ex=1123905600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm....

:wtf: Seven paragraphs in, we read that it isn't like that all over.

But gosh, it *still* sounds like fun!: "Some of these kids, they'll go out and fight all day, and they'll come back and play these goofy space-age electronic war games all night. The furthest thing from my mind is to play war games. You'll walk by and hear them hootin' and hollerin'."

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Jacobin]

2. Who can find the clue in this quote?

"We had no idea conditions were going to be this great!" said Lieutenant Deaton, 25, the public affairs officer of the 256th Brigade Combat Team and an ambassador of the exclamation mark. "My first thought was, oh my God! This is good!"

[Rose Siding]

3. I'm guessing Mr Semple just bought himself *loads* of access

The only thing missing is the cheesecake :eyes:

(I don't begrudge them any and all creature comforts- this is just over the top propaganda)

[Jacobin]

4. I'm guessing Miss Gushy doesn't get out of the Green Zone much

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Good catch

[Blue_Tires]

5. aren't these the REMFs?

[Doo_Revolution]

6. Well, for them of course....

I'm sure all the bushbots get sent to the Greenzone on paltry duty.

Its everyone else who sees world war three

So again, why not? http://operationyellowelephant.blogspot.com

Its time they are all out of this country, serving their country for oil.

[Rose Siding]

7. Wonder how the Green Zone's power service compares to the rest of Baghdad

Iraqis have electricity for 8 hours out of the day.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

9. Wow. Yossarian would love this place...

A King size bed? What size trailors are they living in over there?