Why one should never eat "American" in Baghdad

I have food poisoning again. Our boys went to the PX yesterday and brought back Taco Bell. I never eat Taco Bell in the States but figured I'd try it. One of our Iraqis had the same, a chicken burrito. We both took a couple of bites and threw them out. That probably saved our lives. But the damage was done.

My stomach woke me up this morning. It was being held in a vice grip by a nasty germ, and it was desperately trying to escape my body. It's still trying to get out by punching away at its lining.

The only other time I've had food poisoning it came from the lettuce at a U.S. military base in Ramadi. It was KBR contractor lettuce. The Marines couldn't believe I'd eaten it but no one ever warned me beforehand not to.

When I returned to Baghdad, we called an Iraqi doctor who arrived with a bag of mystery pills and said I'd be better within an hour. He said Iraqis understand food poisoning. I told him this was American food poisoning and therefore it was likely to be much worse. He didn't get the joke.

He told me Allah was in the pills.

No wonder Iraqis are such hypochondriacs.

I felt better in an hour. But after five days of gut-wrenching pain, I'd dropped an entire clothing size.