Alaskans in Iraq....

.... present an interesting story. A couple of months ago I read an article about how the adjustment for soldiers from Alaska sent to Iraq is so great (more than the other 49 states) and how their villages suffer without them during fishing and hunting season. I couldn't find the original article I was looking for, but I did google "eskimo" and "Iraq" and found one from the LA Times from June 5, 2006. Here are some exerpts.

The Iraq deployment in western Alaska comes at an especially poignant time: Late spring is known as "breakup" in the Alaskan bush, when the ever-lengthening days finally melt the snow and ice that have blanketed the tundra for more than half the year and kept it eerily quiet.But as the Yupik men at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River ready themselves for the hunting, fishing and seal-catching that still provide a significant component of people's diets here, they find themselves preparing for a breakup of an almost unfathomably different sort.

In this village of 386 people, six men have been notified to report for duty next month. Though all the men knew they could be called when they signed up years ago for Guard duty — an important source of cash here — several said they were struggling to adjust to the reality."When I signed up, I never thought I would go to war; I mean, you never really think of Alaska being at war with anybody," said Harold Azean, 23, a Guard specialist.Ben Lupie, 30, a Kongiganak carpenter who is also going to Iraq, said he was optimistic that all the men would come back alive. "Us being a hunting people, I think it gives us an advantage," he said, going into an impressive series of mimes: the light prancing of a caribou, the ripple of a fish just below the surface of a river, even the flapping wings of the ducks, cranes and geese that are just arriving on spring migration."We notice the tiniest motions," Lupie said. "So I think we'll be aware if something suspicious is up, and we'll know how to react."

The call-up in the marshy delta country to the west reaches villages so remote that there are only two ways to get here most of the year — by airplane or snowmobile — and a third from May to September, or perhaps October in a warm year with a late freeze-up: the river.

So in places with Eskimo names such as Kongiganak, Kwigillingok and Manokotak, elder leaders and wives find themselves planning how to carry on without strong young men who serve as vital providers of food.

Very interesting dilemma. You can find the article here.