Reporting from Iraq

“Get wet, turn off water, lather up, rinse off.”

Signs like these are posted on the shower trailers around Camp Stryker in Baghdad, reminding soldiers and others to conserve water and utilize “combat shower procedure,” a phrase I think kind of sounds like some sort of personal hygiene mission worthy of a battle plan. Really, it’s just a way to encourage water conservation in a desert combat zone.

Living conditions on Camp Stryker, and the other bases soldiers of the 172nd were moved to in Baghdad after its extension, is a major concern of many family members. On this end, few soldiers gripe about the accommodations. Not that they’re calling it the Hilton, but many acknowledge that the two-man “choos” with beds, lockers, and sometimes a porch, as was the norm on bases in Mosul, were the upper crust of combat living.

Here at Camp Stryker is some quintessential Army living, with acres of the low-slung Army tents, supported along the sides with sandbags. Cots replace beds, although air mattresses to accompany them are coveted. Some soldiers warily eye the green or blue, Alaska-type tarps that cover the tents, hoping the brigade makes it home before rainy season arrives in earnest and the tarps resilience is tested. But the tents are air conditioned and have electricity. Some soldiers said the biggest change was having to adapt to the lack of privacy in the tents, compared to the choos.

Flush toilets were the luxury on bases in Mosul. But rows of porta-pottys offer more ways to conserve water here. The showers offer hot water, but like most Fairbanks cabin dwellers with a holding tank know, an occasional rush on water usage can cause some showers to be more luke warm than hot.

Still, many soldiers said even though these accommodations are a step down from the bases in Mosul, they could be much worse.

“You can’t become accustomed to luxury living in a combat zone,” said Spc. Zach Sherman of the 4-23.

The chow hall offers much of the same foods as in Mosul; hot entrees, sandwich fixings, salad bar, dessert bar, hamburgers, French fries and some fried mozzarella sticks I’ve taken a particular liking to. But, unlike Mosul, when soldiers just can’t stand the thought of another routine meal at the dining hall they can escape to the Burger King or Pizza Hut on base. There’s even a 24-hour coffee shop called Green Beans. It seems to the be the choice coffee shop chain for combat zones, touting shops elsewhere in locations like Dijibouti, Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait.