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U.S. Troops Order Comfort, With Fries on the Side
Soldiers Looking for a Taste of Home Make for a Booming Business at Iraq's First Burger King
By Theola Labbé
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 19, 2003; Page A25
BAGHDAD -- Welcome to Iraq, home of the Whopper.
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.
Each day, soldiers stand in line wearing dusty fatigues caked in dried sweat or black shorts and gray T-shirts with "ARMY" emblazoned in front. Guns are slung on their backs and conversation is nil. The chance to grab lunch or to bring food back for a hungry platoon is limited. Soldiers are focused on the greasy task at hand.
Holding a white receipt that read "Welcome to Iraq," Sgt. John Lambert, 37, waited to pick up his order. The section chief in the 1/94 Field Artillery unit said he couldn't remember how long he'd been in Iraq. He used his fingers to count. Six months down, six to go.
Lambert held an M249 light machine gun, which he estimated to weigh about 12 pounds. His lunch order threatened to compete in heft: four Whopper meals, three chicken meals, two additional chicken sandwiches, two apple pies and a Hershey's pie.
"This was for my platoon," said Lambert, who lives on the airport base. "I just came by and I figured I'd get something. It's kind of standard: If you're going to come over here, you pick it up for everyone."
"I can't eat it, it makes me sick," he said of the burgers. "The Hershey's Pie is for me."
For soldiers based away from the airport, on the other hand, the Burger King is a reminder of the seemingly cruel inequities of military life. While one unit lives within walking distance of a Whopper, another uses brown spoons to scoop lukewarm food from gray pouches -- the dreaded MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat.
Adrian Miller, 19, of Bascom, Ohio, a platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division, is stationed in a southwest section of Baghdad, where guerrillas continue to fight U.S. forces. But a trip to the airport to pick up soldiers returning from leave in Qatar brought him to Burger King.
"We're lucky if we can get over here once a month, we're so busy raiding houses and kicking down doors in the middle of the night," said Miller, who bought $84 worth of food. "When we get free time and no one is using the trucks, then we come out here."
Khalid Alayam, a Palestinian American from Houston who lives in Kuwait, manages the restaurant on a subcontract from Army and Air Force Exchange Services, the not-for-profit organization that runs businesses on U.S. military bases around the world. He said the restaurant follows the same protocol as any other Burger King.
The temperature of the patties is checked every three hours. Workers put ketchup on the buns in the same circular pattern as in the United States. Twice a week, trucks rumble up from Kuwait carrying frozen patties. There is a walk-in cooler and freezer in the trailer-like structure that holds the kitchen. A 40-foot freezer outside stores more beef patties.
The restaurant workers are originally from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal, though most now live in Kuwait. They work here for three weeks, sleeping in bunk beds in a unit directly behind the Burger King, and then go home for a week.
On lunch break, Ricky Hernandez, 29, a worker from the Philippines, ate a chicken sandwich inside one of the air-conditioned mobile units. He was still wearing his hairnet and blue polo shirt with the Burger King logo on the short sleeve.
Hernandez said he volunteered for the job because he figured it would be a challenge. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to come to Baghdad, Iraq," he said.
Prices at the Burger King range from 75 cents for a soda to $3 for a Double Whopper with cheese. Of course, only U.S. bills are accepted. Instead of giving coins as change, the restaurant gives out cardboard chips worth 25 cents each, redeemable at the post exchange. The PX sells snack food, CDs, DVDs and magazines with busty women on the cover. On one clothing rack, T-shirts for sale read, "Who's Your Baghdaddy?"
In the back of a tarp-covered Humvee, a five-man crew from an engineering company finished lunch. Two soldiers had opted for Burger King. The other three ate smaller, plain meat-on-bun burgers from the dining hall.
"I like grease," said a tall, slim Sgt. Michael Beard, 28, from Las Vegas, who scarfed down a Chicken Royale with cheese, a Whopper with cheese, an apple pie and a Coke. "And I need the weight."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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