"Baghdad Burger King a Hit with U.S. Soldiers" Posted by Jean Shaw Tuesday, October 21, 2003
U.S. soldiers in Iraq yearning for a taste of home, need look no further than Baghdad, where Iraq's very first Burger King had just been opened. Theola Labbé, writing for The Washington Post, demonstrates the true meaning of ''comfort food.''
Deep inside Baghdad International Airport, past a vehicle search, a body search and four checkpoints, soldiers are lined up for burgers and fries. They have come by plane from Mosul, 220 miles north, for onion rings. They have picked up Chicken Royale sandwiches while picking up buddies flying back from a two-week home leave. They have begged and borrowed Humvees, making up any excuse for a trip to the airport and a reminder of what the pink mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise oozing from a fresh Whopper tastes like.
''It tastes like home, yes it does,'' said Staff Sgt. Mark Williams, 50, from Pittsburgh, after tearing off a chunk of his Whopper with cheese.
The former Saddam International Airport now houses Iraq's first Burger King. Part creature comfort, part therapy for homesick troops, its sales have reached the top 10 among all Burger King franchises on Earth in the five months since it opened. The shiny metal broiler spits out 5,000 patties a day.
The takeout stand is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and offers six sandwiches; a normal menu has 16. There are no milkshakes. But even with the limited menu, and with competition from the Bob Hope dining facility at the airport -- which is free and serves 8,000 meals a day--Burger King's daily sales are between $15,000 and $18,000, military officials say.
The restaurant probably owes much of its success to its location. The sprawling, heavily fortified airport complex, the nerve center of the U.S. military's operations in Iraq, provides a captive clientele of more than 6,000 soldiers, plus contractors and other civilians. In addition, Washington dignitaries fly in and out, and all mail for U.S. forces in Iraq arrives here.
The headquarters of the 1st Armored Division are across from the Burger King. Capt. David Gercken and Capt. Jason Beck, public affairs officers for the division, had lunch at the free dining facility one day recently, but their minds were clearly on Burger King and its storied Hershey's Pie--a swirly mix of chocolate and whipped cream.
''It's $2 of heaven. It's the only thing getting us through this deployment,'' Gercken said in reverent tones.
''The perforated edge of that pouch, when you open it up it sings,'' Beck said.
''The pie completes the deal, the chocolate-crumb base,'' Gercken continued.
''It speaks for itself,'' Beck said.
continued http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=4779
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Quis custodiet istos custodes?
"Who will watch the watchers?" ~ "Who is to guard the guards themselves?"
-- Juvenal's Satires, VI. 347, circa 110 AD