Tuesday, January 20, 2004

PIZZA PIZZA

This story is actually about the aftermath of the huge bombing on Sunday. But I thought this part of the story a very interesting statement on the nature of the American GI.

Recall that until this month the only working cell phones in Iraq were limited to 500 phones owned, controlled and operated by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Well, it seems one GI had other uses for the controlled phones.
Al-Bayati, 38, learned to make pizzas in Rome. He and his brother Wa’il opened the shop June 27, 2003, hoping to attract soldiers and foreigners. Someone within the U.S. military community even gave al-Bayati a cell phone that runs on a military network within Baghdad. It’s number is included on his take-away menu, along with 19 varieties of pizzas written in English.

The pizza shop makes deliveries, some of them to the checkpoint across the street, also known by troops as MOAC — the Mother of All Checkpoints.

On Monday, soldiers were wary of photographs and interviews for fear that they would get in trouble for ordering out. “But it’s great pizza,” said one soldier from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, asking not to be identified.

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