I was just thinking of something odd....

In the late Seventies, I had guests from Iraq in the hotel. Came in and ordered a three bed room. And signed them in, and all of a SUDDEN.... ten Iraquis ran up the stairs and 'occupied' it. It was so odd. What bothered me is that they let the grandmother sleep in the car!

Who would have known then what the fuck was going on....

They used a grill on the carpet, and made a mess. I had to translate that there were extra costs for what they did.

Whereupon....

Whereupon...

The woman fell to her knees, began beating her breasts and screaming till the roof wanted to come down. I was afraid of other guest walking into this incredible scene, and told them to just get the fuck out of the hotel.

They went away happy, I was fully frustrated...

So if we compute this to today, decades later...

How would you expect young American soldiers to interpret that behaviour?

It begins with the world's biggest disconnect, somehow.

And I think about people who get sent to war zones, and have no idea what the people are like or their traditions are, and I sort of think... WHY do they DO that, you know?

Some things really freak me out, and this is apropos nothing...