Photo By Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Matson | U.S. Army 1st Lt. Billy Habibi (left), a medical operations officer from Des Moines,...... read more read more
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LAGHMAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – It may have been 4 a.m., but the soldiers gathered at the dining facility on Forward Operating Base Mehtar Lam were far from sleepy.
Instead a crowd of fiery soldiers were eating chicken wings, jumping up and down and yelling at the dining facility television screen. It was Super Sunday, Monday morning in northeastern Afghanistan. The soldiers, primarily from the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment of the Iowa National Guard’s 34th Infantry “Red Bulls” Division woke up a little earlier than usual to see a classic confrontation between two of the most storied franchises in the National Football League.
Since Iowa has no NFL team, most of the soldiers in the dining facility say they root for the closest geographical teams from bordering states – the Chicago Bears, the Minnesota Vikings, the Kansas City Chiefs, and of course, the Green Bay Packers. The Packers fans outnumbered the Steelers fans that morning, although there was still a good representation of fans cheering for the black and gold.
One Packers fan watching the game was U.S. Army 1st Lt. Billy Habibi, who was born in Oshkosh, Wisc. He rocked nervously back and forth in his chair during the commercial break between the third and fourth quarters. The Steelers, down 21-10 at halftime, had closed the gap to 21-17.
“It’s a great game,” said Habibi, a medical operations officer with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Bn., 133rd Inf. Regt., who now calls Des Moines, Iowa, home. “The third quarter was terrible for the Packers.”
Across from him, wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers cap, U.S. Army Spc. David Brumley, an unmanned aerial vehicle operator from Company B, 2nd Brigade, 34th Inf. Div. Special Troops Battalion, from Stuart, Iowa, shook his head.
“I’m gonna say the opposite of that, except for the part about it being a great game,” Brumley said. “The first half was terrible.”
When asked what they thought would happen, Habibi refused to make a prediction.
“I just know the Packers gotta score,” he said. “I don’t want to jinx it.”
“I’m gonna say 27-21, Steelers,” Brumley said.
There were as many as 100 people inside the dining facility to watch the game, but a group of maybe 50 diehards were there from kickoff to the end of regulation. Habibi and Brumley were two of these diehards. Both said they were lifelong fans of their teams. Someone could have almost known exactly what was going on in the game simply by watching their contradictory facial expressions.
But, on this day, it was Habibi who wound up smiling at the end of the game. He and his co-workers and fellow Packers fans from the FOB aid station gathered around the huge Green Bay sign they made for the game to take celebratory pictures after the Packers claimed their fourth NFL title.
Meanwhile, a somber Brumley removed the Pittsburgh flag he had hung on the wall on the opposite side of the television screen.
“That’s OK, we already got six (championships.) More than any team,” he said as he left the chow hall.
| Date Taken: | 02.08.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 02.07.2011 15:14 |
| Story ID: | 64952 |
| Location: | LAGHMAN PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 279 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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