The New Military Campaign
Longtime readers of News Gems know that I'm a huge fan of two-time Pulitzer winner Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune. In 2006 I named his "Tank of Gas, World of Trouble," the #1 News Gem of the year. This week Salopek is back with another masterpiece. His "Africa: A War on Terror's Hidden Front" takes us to the Horn of Africa, where the U.S. military is waging a little-known campaign against terrorism. In the following passage, he uses an incredible mix of vivid details, analogy and sentence rhythm to describe one of the outposts of the new military campaign:
In desolate northern Djibouti, a former French colony in Africa's Horn, Staff Sgt. Ramirez fought her own small corner of Washington's quiet war in Africa from a ramshackle hotel with a plank bar facing the Gulf of Aden.
Hotel Le Golfe, in the infernally hot town of Tadjoura, was run by a dour ex-French Legionnaire with hair dyed the yellow of processed cheese spread. "Rick's Cafe" from Casablanca it wasn't. But its clientele included South African backpackers, turbaned businessmen from Yemen and Pacific Islanders in pixelated desert camouflage. These were members of the U.S. territory of Guam's National Guard, the main U.S. military trainers on Africa's Horn.
Ramirez's own AOR—or "area of responsibility"—took in some 3,000 square miles of the Afar Triangle, a treeless badlands straddling Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Her orders resembled those of a Chicago precinct captain: Be friendly. Show the flag. Don't get suckered.
The accompanying audio slideshow with photos by E. Jason Wambsgans and narration by Salopek shows us how desolate the landscape is where the soldiers are operating. www.chicagotribune.com/chi-africa-barack-obama-terror,0,3552900.story