Iraqi Labor

November 5, 2009

Every morning at Camp Anaconda there was an enormous line of Iraqis at the gates waiting to be picked for odd jobs around the base.







If we needed some labor, would go to the gates and chose a crew. Usually what would happen is you'd find one of them that spoke some English, and he would hand-pick his friends for the work. They each received $5 for the day, which came from our unit's budget.






We mostly hired help for stacking sandbags, which were for protection from shrapnel.






They usually sat in the floor to eat. Sometimes, we would bring them all a plate from the DFAC, the rest of the time, we gave them MREs. Whatever they had to eat, they'd put it all together in the middle of a circle and they would all eat from the middle.







I have to admit, I never fully trusted them and I was not comfortable with them having box cutters. I can't remember why they needed them that particular day. But, hey, we had M16s, so no worries.



In this picture, it was early January and, yes, it was cold outside. They found some wasps in between some sandbags that were so lethargic from the cold that they were barely moving.

I tried to tell that guy behind me that he looked like the Iraqi Justin Timberlake, but he didn't know what I was talking about.

However, there is one American they probably knew better than any other...

I am convinced that you can go to the most remote place on the globe that you can possibly find, walk up to somebody, and say, "Michael Jackson", and they will smile and say, "Ohhhh Michael Jackson!", and then ramble on in their language talking about him. Here's a video of one of them dancing.


that's not me speaking on the video, by the way





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iraq, Michael Jackson, tai, deployment,