in the Zone

[pynchonoid]

[...] Personal CD players, MP3's, portable DVD movie
systems, satellite dishes and laptop computers with
Internet access allow soldiers to stay current with
American music, movies and television, even inside the
concertina wire at bases deep in a foreign society
isolated by years of dictatorship, embargo and war.

When a day's combat patrol or reconstruction mission
is over, the troops join the global consumer culture,
retreating into the the privacy of headphones to
recapture a bit of territory in the war zone, free
from the collective of military life. 

[...] The American Forces Network continues to splice
official messages into its satellite TV programming
and mingle them with the songs on its radio station
here.

But when the troops peel off their flak jackets, they
largely tune into their own play lists. While musical
tastes among the troops are as varied as they are in
civilian life, in the land of the Tigris and Euphrates
let it be recorded: Soldiers assigned to
civilization's cradle will rock.

At the Kirkush Military Training Base in the eastern
Iraqi desert less than 15 miles from the frontier with
Iran, an hour's wait for a helicopter was spent
listening to Marilyn Manson, Eminem and Shania Twain
before the Black Hawk fired up its turbines and
somebody back in the barracks, as if on cue and with a
dark sense of irony, cranked up Led Zeppelin's
"Stairway to Heaven."

The songs came from a European satellite music channel
and a communal computer where 12.8 gigabites of tunes
had been downloaded for sharing on MP3's. The rule was
simple: Take some music, add some music.

"Any time anybody on the team gets a new CD, they load
it in, so we stay pretty current," said Sgt. Thomas R.
Mena.

As the new CD from Tool blasted in the barracks,
Sergeant Mena scrolled through the computerized music
library, which ranged from Abba and AC/DC, through
Limp Biskit and Metallica and on to Van Halen and ZZ
Top. 

[...] for troops serving today in Iraq, the American
Forces Network is most popular for its satellite
television, which reels in sports, news and shows from
"The Simpsons" to "Seinfeld" to "Friends" to "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer." [...] The network's Freedom Radio
broadcasts live from inside Iraq for half the day and
takes feeds from its headquarters in Riverside,
Calif., for the rest. [...] "Our format is `Bright
Adult Contemporary,' which is mainstream hits," said
Lt. Col. Mathew Durham, who is in charge of the
American Forces Network in Baghdad. "Naturally we have
to be careful about what we play in an Islamic nation.
But we've got a big play list."

Soldiers at checkpoints, where headphones are
prohibited, are among the most loyal network radio
listeners. The messages they hear between the songs
are mostly lowest common denominator public service
announcements, urging soldiers to clear their weapons
before entering dining halls, to drink more bottled
water as March temperatures push toward 100 degrees,
to write home more often and file their taxes on time.
[...] At a field encampment, Camp Warhorse outside
Baquba, the military's forward operating base that
carries the grim distinction of being mortared more
often than any other, commanders order a total
blackout at night: no streetlamps illuminate the roads
or walkways, and windows and doors are blanketed.

But satellite TV dishes sprout like mushrooms in the
dark, so the dining hall and a cratered hanger that is
a recreation center are lighted with the blue light of
sitcoms.

The delegation traveling with Paul D. Wolfowitz, the
deputy defense secretary, watched the Super Bowl live
with troops of the 101st Airborne Division at Mosul
this year, a treat for veterans of the first Persian
Gulf war, who recalled not knowing the winner of the
1991 championship for up to a week. [...] "If a movie
has been out in a theater for a week, you can get it
here," said Specialist Michael Trujillo with the 819th
Military Police Company. He said bootleg DVD copies of
"50 First Dates," starring Adam Sandler and Drew
Barrymore, were on sale just days after it opened in
the United States.

Not surprisingly, soldiers tend to favor action flicks
like the "Matrix," "Mad Max" and "Terminator"
trilogies, "Tomb Raider" films, "Scorpion King" and
"Cop Land."

Officers prefer "The Sopranos" and slightly more
cerebral combat movies, like "U-571," a submarine
thriller about World War II. Once you get enough stars
on your collars though, the tube is turned to 24-hour
news.

<http://nytimes.com/2004/04/13/arts/music/13TROO.html>



	
		
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