Paper or Plastic?

Wednesday is apparently "Steak and Crab Legs" night in Baghdad. Did I mention we eat well? I guess we lucked out because Saturday was "Steak and Crab Legs" night in Kuwait, and we managed to catch that for our first real meal after 3 days of MREs. I feel like I'm eating like a king. Note to self: start workout routine soon. Before you get too envious, let me remind you that the lack of "permanence" of things that I mentioned about buildings and such also extends to the dining establishment. There's no permanent utensils. We eat off plastic plates with plastic knives, forks, and spoons, and pretty much everything is disposable. Obviously this presents difficulties cutting steak (unless you have your handy dandy leatherman tool) and is a very difficult proposition when dealing with King Crab Legs. Oh, well, some sacrifices must be made. They also have "near beer" (non-alcoholic beer) as one of the drink options. It does not get very good reviews. I've been content with "Coca cola light" (the Arabic version of Diet Coke) and a bottle of gatorade to go. We had a full day of training today, and I know a lot more than I did 10 hours ago. Of course, it once again feels like I'm on the business end of a fire hose trying to take a drink. Fortunately we're learning a lot about the other people out here who we'll be working with/for and what they can do for us. "One team, one fight." It seems the Army is very happy to have us here, and they're looking forward to us doing big things. I hope we meet their expectations.