Walking along the gravel road near our CHUs, I saw the cleaning crew spread out and working in various bathrooms and showers. The crew is composed of locals, supervised by a civilian, and overwatched by soldiers, which the soldiers call TCN (Third Country National) duty. I walked by the civilian, who was saying to the soldier “Look at ‘em. Diggin' for gold. None of ‘em got a damn thing.”
Looking up the road I saw a young Iraqi standing by a dumpster. He had the garbage can from a bathroom, to be emptied into the dumpster. But, before he dumped in the garbage, he sorted through the dumpster. He extracted a sack of potato chips and peered into it. Apparently empty, he threw it back and continued with his work.
**
Two soldiers carrying bulging green cloth laundry bags caught a ride with me the other day. Noticing the bags, and proudly demonstrating my command of the obvious, I said “Headed for the laundromat I see.” “Yes sir.”
They had chosen to do their laundry themselves, and spend about three hours doing it, rather than turn in the laundry to the KBR laundry. I asked them why, since they could turn in the laundry just a short distance from where they live, and it would save them hours of time.
“We work TCN duty” one of them said, as if that explained it all. “Oh, okay,” I said, “What does that have to do with it?”
“Well sir, we watch the locals who work in the KBR laundry, and it’s bad. Real bad. You don’t want to get your laundry done there. I saw one guy wipe his face with a clean shirt.”
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