You may insert your own comments with regard to Iraq in the comments, naturally. Not only do these pages reflect an impressive commitment to the avoidance of offence, some also show a degree of self-knowledge regarding the troops, and a healthy disrespect for (someone else's) imperialism.
4 comments:
Interesting! Have you seen a similar document of instructions for American GIs in Britain during WWII? I found it at Blackwells.
Examples:
"Don't be a showoff."
"The British don't know how to make a good cup of coffee. You don't know how to make a good cup of tea. It's an even swap."
And my favorite: "There are housewives in aprons and youngsters in knee pants who have lived through more high explosives in air raids than many soldiers saw in first class barrages in the last war."
These are really fascinating. And nearly all hold true today (at least here in the Gulf).
Will the person who's linked this on companycommand.army.mil get in touch? Although it shows up in the referrer log it's impossible for me to find out what you said about it.
The Nazi Afrika Korps had a very similar document:
http://www.deutsches-afrikakorps.de/html/doks/islam.htm
"Islam
1) Always remember that Islam is a religion of high standing, whose view of God is as highly developed as Christendom's
2) Because of that, treat Muslims with the same respect and tolerance which which Christian of different denominations should [!] treat each other..."
And a lot of other good, resonable advice.
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