![]() Other versions of the ugly-American stories have the soldiers drinking beer (or sometimes Kool-Aid laced with alcohol) inside their tanks near mosques. ![]() (Never mind the absence of evidence for this theory.) ![]() When they are not peering through women's clothes, the male soldiers are said to be groping underneath the clothes during searches at checkpoints, supposedly provoking some of the attacks on soldiers. "He kept saying to me, `Turn it on, turn it on.' " Stephen Roach, a soldier from Lufkin, Tex. "I let a kid put on my sunglasses, and he was still convinced they had X-ray vision," said Sgt. Sweltering soldiers have tried dispelling the myths about their gear by letting Iraqis touch their vests and try on their sunglasses, but some legends will not die. "Most Iraqis thought the American soldiers would be gone by now because they could never stand the summer in Iraq," he said. "I am not sure of the exact mechanism, but we all know the Americans have very sophisticated technology."Īadel Delli, the owner of a food market in downtown Baghdad, said he did not believe the air-conditioned-uniform stories, which he attributed to popular doubts about Americans' capacity for discomfort. "There is fluid circulating throughout the underwear," said Mr. Some Iraqis say the soldiers take special pills that keep them cool, but the most common theory is that they have portable air-conditioners - usually said to be inside the vests, but sometimes placed in the helmet or even the underwear. The legend about the X-ray sunglasses may have evolved from reports about the soldiers' night-vision goggles, or maybe just from the imposing Terminator image of the soldiers.Ĭompared with the residents, who cope with 120-degree heat by staying in the shade and dressing in light clothes and sandals, the soldiers have the look of robotic aliens as they patrol in the midday sun wearing combat boots, helmets and armored vests. Hussein's treachery and to American technology. In the urban legends flourishing here, the soldiers triumphed thanks to Mr. But there have been more guns than flowers. Of course, Americans have been circulating their own kinds of legends, starting with the fantasies a few months ago that the occupying troops would be peacefully welcomed by a nation of grateful flower-waving citizens. Hussein, people here are accustomed to conspiracy theories and ready to believe the worst about anyone in power. Just as truth is the first casualty of war, urban legends seem to be the first creation of a military occupation, especially when the cultural gap is as wide as it is here. "I do not believe Saddam is in America," Mr. The retired accountant, Hekmet Tinber Hassan, smiled and said it was a baseless rumor, just like the widespread story that Saddam Hussein had been secretly working for America and was now at a C.I.A. ![]() We are afraid to take our families out on the street." "With those glasses, he can definitely see through women's clothes," said the engineering student, Samer Hamid. 6 - As an American soldier peered out of a passing tank, a young engineering student and a retired accountant contemplated one of the more common questions on the streets of Baghdad: Did the soldier's wraparound sunglasses give him X-ray vision? ![]()
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