The low cost means that some soldiers can amass libraries of hundreds of films-a fact attested to by another Ars forum member who goes by the nickname DiePilot (but prefers his real name not be used). The humble PX (Post Exchange) also makes it simple to acquire gear the one at Camp Liberty stocks 11 types of televisions, including one plasma which retails for $3,000.Īnd then there are the local vendors, Iraqis who hawk cheap items like $3 DVDs. This means that GIs can load up on electronics from Amazon, get free shipping, and let Uncle Sam foot the bill to fly it halfway around the world. This is made easier by the US Postal Service, which charges only domestic shipping rates to soldiers in Iraq. While life on the bases may not be routine, it is increasingly possible for soldiers in the larger ones, even in places like Iraq, to experience the comforts of home. The personal electronics have made modern American warfare the most comfortable it has ever been, but they've also brought a new set of problems onto the battlefield. While soldiers once deployed with little more than a backpack and a rifle, today's crop of infantry troops pack along MP3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, video games, movie collections, and computers of their own. Woltering, who's a member of the Ars OpenForum, is no longer surprised to see this sort of tech on the battlefield after five years spent as a Satellite, Wideband, and Telemetry Systems Journeyman in the Air Force.
That guy got a talking to about that particular incident." They all hit the deck, donning their body armor, thinking they were under attack. Woltering remembers that the noise "woke everyone up in the tent. The homemade beats blasted out of his speakers instead. And then, one night, he made a mistake-he accidentally unplugged his headphones. He had converted one corner of his 10-man tent into a complete DJ studio and worked late into the night, remixing samples and patching together his own beats. One of the soldiers in the unit had hauled an amazing array of electronic gear into the desert with him: expensive computer, turntables, speakers. One of Mikhail Woltering's strangest experiences in Iraq came when he helped a US unit fix a problem with their satellite TV hookup.
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