Telegraph:
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It is around 8pm and the soldiers have finished their evening meal, a chicken curry followed by semi-frozen Black Forest gateau, all washed down with an orange-coloured, sickly sweet squash. Curry is an Army staple. The soldiers in Camp Bastion are offered it as a menu choice every day, but in Shawqat curry is a rarity and always a crowd-puller. It’s comfort food, it reminds the soldiers of home.
The bunker is lit by a series of low-hanging florescent lights emitting a dull-greenish hue. On one wall is an electric flycatcher, which periodically spits out a series of cracks every time a fly is zapped. The previous evening soldiers were betting on how many flies would be killed in one, five and 10 minutes.
A 50-inch flatscreen television fills a wall at one end of the building, where three young soldiers sit engrossed in The Hurt Locker. It’s one of the many oddities of life in Helmand that many soldiers appear to relax by watching war films or playing violent computer games. Woody looks over his shoulder and stares at the TV for a few seconds. Then he turns to me and a wide, toothy grin creeps across his face. “Hollywood,” he says, shaking his head. “You just knew they weren’t going to get it right. You wouldn’t last five minutes if you behaved like that out here.”
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It is a long story that covers a few real life defusing of bombs as well as getting his by an improvised claymore device. The American bomb squads had the same reaction to
The Hurt Locker.
Image via Wikipedia
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