4th of July in Iraq

For the 4th of July, the US Army put on a sports day competition. Our NATO contingent of around 60 at latest count entered a team in every event (ping pong, tug of war, basketball, soccer, volleyball, spades, bench press, 5k run, etc.). It was a good time and we won easily – the joke is that this was NATO’s first undisputed victory anywhere!
Here’s a picture of our security contactor from Nepal (no one over 5’8”) put together a volleyball team and killed everyone – they were very proud. They play volleyball in our compound until 11PM every night – so they were well prepared.


Here are 2 pictures of our tug of war team, composed of folks from Hungary, Britain and Poland. We should have just told our Hungarians to do the team by themselves. The guys they have here are a tough lot. Evidently, tug of war is nearly a national sport in England. Our lone Brit tried to talk strategy, but his accent was so strong, I gave up! We took 2nd, which isn’t too bad. We certainly weren't going to win on style points.
We have 12 USAF officers – captain and up working here training cadets. We're from all over (Oklahoma St Univ, Alabama, Colorado, Kent St, Germany, Hawaii, and more). Here is a picture of us.