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So, how do the men and officers of the Zaytun Unit, deployed in Irbil, Iraq on a peace reconstruction mission, spend their day?
On weekdays, the day begins at 6:00 a.m. with some light calisthenics in front of the container barracks. Taking into consideration the combat situation, there are no broadcasts or bugle calls, so night watchmen or other on-duty personnel go around waking their buddies. Morning jogging has also been curtailed due to the vast amounts of sand and dust around the base. A unit official said, "From the middle of the month, we should begin work on paving major roads within the base, so we should be able to do some jogging by the beginning of next month." The official said that the Special Forces operatives who have hardened themselves through exercise and physical training have been asking for a place to exercise, complaining of a craving for PT.
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Bottles of mineral water line the desert, bound for the Zaytun unit in Irbil, Iraq.
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On this first Friday rest day (Friday was designated the unit's day of rest taking into consideration the cultural particularities of the Irbil region), the unit enjoyed its first free time in a long time, using the period to play kickball here and there within the base area or doing the laundry that had been building up.
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Female soldiers of the Zaytun unit had a conversation, armed with rifles, on Thursday morning (local time).
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Most Zaytun members begin their morning work after having breakfast in the unit's dome-shaped canteen between 7:00~8:00 a.m. They have lunch and take a break between 11:40 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. In the afternoon, they handle their duties like they did in the morning. They have dinner at 6:00, and spend 7:00~9:30 cleaning, resting and taking roll call, and in this way their day comes to an end.
Military authorities originally had diverse plans to provide leisure opportunities for the men on base, but with priority being placed on urgent missions like building the base, conditions to ensure the men's leisure time are still deficient. Even as of early this month, most of the men's day was spent constructing the container barracks and protective barriers and covering the base area with gravel to reduce the amount of dust. During that time, the dust that comes up to your ankles and mid-summer heat of 50 degrees were the worst "enemies" of the men of the Zaytun Unit. Capt. Lee Shin, commander of the 1st company of the engineering battalion that has been in Iraq since May building the base facilities, frankly discussed the difficulties of that period. "In summer, the sun doesn't go down until 9:00 at night, so while we were working more than eight hours a day, we once had 23 out of 110 company members get sick on the same day with diarrhea, vomiting and exhaustion," he said.
As leaving the barracks is strictly controlled, the unit plans to complete construction of two welfare center structures by the end of this month. The center will be equipped with physical training facilities, karaoke rooms, PC cafes, convenience stores, Laundromats, a PX, and other comfort facilities.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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