In Baghdad's Victory Base Complex there's a coffee shop known as The Green Bean. Not much more than a couple of double-wide trailers glued together with a coffee bar in the middle, it's a popular gathering place for contractors and military personnel. I spent about three hours in "The Bean" today watching the world go by. It sort of reminded me of the "bar scene" in the original Star Wars. Here's what I saw:
- A group of impromptu musicians played folk and bluegrass music in one corner much to everyone's delight. The Brits were struggling with it though.
- Several people wearing PT uniforms with drop-leg holsters. It must be hard to run like that.
- A group of cyclists stopped by, out for their Sunday morning ride, adorned in black and yellow Go Army/Livestrong bicycle shirts.
- Five or six people reading bibles. OK, it was Sunday. No one was reading the Koran though.
- An Iraqi army officer fighting through his first ever expresso. He couldn't finish it.
- Waves of khaki colored flight-suited PSD types; blood types scrawled on their boots, patches Velcro-ed here and there.
- Soldiers in dusty ACUs with M4s strapped across their back trying to find some normalcy in a coffee shop.
- Women with a single guy in-tow. Few women are seen alone there. They always have to token male escort, who's happy to go along albeit a bit desperate looking though.
- No Wookies or blasters, but I wouldn't put it past one of the PSD guys to have a Genuine Immitation Luke Skywalker lightsaber tucked away someplace.
In Baghdad's Victory Base Complex there's a coffee shop known as The Green Bean. Not much more than a couple of double-wide trailers glued together with a coffee bar in the middle, it's a popular gathering place for contractors and military personnel. I spent about three hours in "The Bean" today watching the world go by. It sort of reminded me of the "bar scene" in the original Star Wars. Here's what I saw:
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