USA. Fort Irwin, Califrnia. 2011. A soldier checks on a comrade feigning injury during a mock attack on a base. Elements of
the 1st Armored Division were going through training at Fort Irwin, California, to prepare for a
deployment to Iraq. Fort Irwin, a remote desert base, has a number of fabricated Iraqi and Afghan
villages and a core team of trainers masquerading as townspeople and insurgents. Real Afghans
and Iraqis, some of them soldiers before the American invasion, role-play with the military in
order to educate and sensitize them to local cultural practices. One former Iraqi General played
his role so convincingly that he threw me out of a meeting, yelling at the American Colonel that
it was disrespectful to bring media without approving it with him first.