FOB ISKAN, pictured here, where a Swedish journalist I meet claimed that all the soldiers keep the toilet seats in the up position "because they are so disciplined."
Some journalists are assholes, unlike me. Others are assholes, snobs and idiots. I met Johanne Hildebrandt, a journalist from Sweden, while I was in at FOB Kalsu working on this article: http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=196262
I asked her what she was working on. She couldn't tell me. It was a secret. She said, “You know, stuff.” Like I was going to steal her article, please. This is her story.
http://deliveryf.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,1028769,00.html
She later revealed to a Marine Col. that picked us up at the helopad in the Green Zone that she was at FOB Iskan. I spent a week there last summer and covered a big fight. I never thought it was a secret.
She went on to talk about how a big US soldier pressed his body against her, when they was some small arms fire. And continued that on about how disciplined the soldiers were, because all the toilets had the seats up. So, let me tell you, the bathrooms there are divided by sexes, so she only would have seen the womans room. However, the porto-potties are unisex. They also have spring loaded toilet seats.
She bragged about how she worked for the “biggest newspaper in Sweden” but couldn't even forward her article to me. I found it on google.
So, we were all invited to see the Iraqi Police Graduation at FOB Kalsu. She screwed off and ignored it. The solution to this war is Iraqi Police and Army taking over. Some crazy journalists like me think that maybe that is something news worthy to cover. Call me Crazy . . .
If you can't tell, I really dislike snobbish journalists, that think they are above the rest of us covering this war, especially when they choose only to pay attention to being shot at, and toilet seats. Shit, I was shot at more in Nevada when I worked for Burning Man than she was in Iraq, I bet.
I asked her and her photographer if they covered the Swedish soldiers in Afghanistan. They said no. Well, at least they can inform the Swedish public erroneously about the condition of the toilet seat lids at FOB Iskan.
Translation of the article provided by http://www.tranexp.com
http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdeliveryf.aftonbladet.se%2Fvss%2Fnyheter%2Fstory%2F0%2C2789%2C1028769%2C00.html&type=text&text=&from=swe&to=eng
Well, it's nice she was touched by a soldier and never used her journalistic skills to look and see the toilet seat lids are spring loaded.
