01Apr10 Kidnappings

01Apr10 Kidnappings

I had to stay at BIAP (US military side of Baghdad Internation
AirPort) recently on my trip to Kalsu and ended up being there 3 days
waiting for a flight to Balad. Camp Stryker (aka Stryker Stables) is
there as well and so I stayed in one of the hooches there and did
training for a unit that uses the program that we maintain. Anyway,
on the last night all military had to muster around midnight and the
next day there were obvious extra security conditions going on. I did
some asking and was told that someone was kidnapped the night
previous.
The bases are pretty big in Iraq and some are fairly close to outside
civilian populations. At any time there are hundreds, if not
thousands of contractors on any base of which more than half are
either TCN (third country nationals) or HCN (host country national).
There's a lot of security to get ON the base but frankly very little
to get OFF the base. (see previous posting 'Dude! Where's my
HUMVEE???')
While I can't confirm whether there was a kidnapping or not, I've
heard similar in the past and also there are more posters up such as
'Where's your Battle Buddy?' and this poster (see above). I do wonder
from where did they get the 11 year old kid to draw this poster
though!
R/Chris

PS - Yes, for some reason Camp Stryker is generally referred to as
'Stryker Stable' rather than Camp Stryker. I guess a horse stud ranch
sounds better than a summer baseball camp.