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G.I.'s Tote Their Own Pop Culture

Apr-14-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

Times have certainly changed.

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By THOM SHANKER

BAGHDAD, Iraq — American troops arrive for duty in Iraq with a rifle in one hand, a wrench in the other and a lot of American pop culture in their rucksacks.

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 new technologies have had a potent impact on the military, ending its monopoly over the supply of news and entertainment for American troops serving in a foreign land whose borders include a language barrier.

Senior officers have responded with daily newsletters for unit commanders and the troops via e-mail. 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.


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