31 Dec 08 Newspapers and Locals Iraqis help celebrate the New Year

When I was in the Navy and deployed it was not easy to get up-to-date news and email was in its infancy.  At Balad (hereafter referred to as JBB for Joint Base Balad) and most other bases in Iraq soldiers, DAX and contractors have two newspapers that they can generally pick up daily.  One is the Stars And Strips the other is the Expeditionary Times.  And even better yet, both are online and have some great high-res color pics. The Stars And Stripes is a sort of a 'military' USA Today paper covering topics from stateside while the Expeditionary Times covers stuff in Iraq.  Again the Military has done a great job in this respect and links for each are below.   And for those that are interested, there are job postings as well in each paper. 

http://www.dvidshub.net/
(To see the pdf file type 'expeditionary times' in the search box and look at the Publications tab on the results.

http://www.stripes.com/
(click this link to see the web site)

http://epaper.stripes.com/#fragment-2
(click this link to download the Mideast version of the daily Stars and Strips (which is what I see))

On another note, the local Iraqis here have been helping those of us on base welcome in the new year with rockets and other things that go boom.  In return the CRAM will fire off a volley of red-laser (tracer rounds).  Since the CRAM is on automatic you never know when it'll go off.  But when it does go off, you hear it as it is LOUD! 

R/Chris