Friday, February 9, 2007

The Ugandan connection and international forces in Iraq

Camp Fallujah, Iraq - Those of you that don't know me personally, are probably unaware that I have a brother who lives in Uganda. How is this relevant you ask?

1) Uganda, as my brother pointed out in an email today is in the same timezone as Iraq (GMT +3). Random but somewhat interesting.

2) The facilities guards around Camp Fallujah are all from Uganda. Very bizarre to an outsider...

If I try to get into the Marine Corps Head Quarters I need to show my ID card to a Ugandan soldier who will then inform me that I need an escort to enter the area. I also need to get past the Ugandans to get into the chow hall for breakfast, but in that case I do not need an escort.

Here is a list of all the different nationalities of soldiers and/or police trainers that I have seen here in Iraq in the past few days:

Estonia
El Salvador
Peru
Britain
Australia
Uganda
Spain
Denmark (embassy guards I believe)

1 comment:

phil said...

you can tell the guards that we live on mbuya hill. mmmBOOyah. it's just uphill from the army hospital and only a couple hundred meters from the army barracks at the top of the hill, so they'll probably know where we are.

Day by Day, by Chris Muir (updated daily)



Chris Muir is the cartoonist that I met in Kuwait. He spent two weeks in Iraq at the same time I was there in February 2007, and so thought it would relevant to showcase his work on my site. Here is a link to Chris' humorous travelogue of this Iraq trip: http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/03/arrival_alignright_v.php