Troops Ready for Hairy Experience

TOKYO - Japan's military is experimenting with a new form of camouflage. Male Japanese soldiers heading for Iraq on a historic mission over the next couple of months are being advised to grow mustaches so as to fit in with the locals, said a spokesman at their base in Asahikawa on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The 10 or so female members of the 600-strong contingent are being issued with dark green scarves to cover their hair in accordance with local custom.
Drinking alcohol and eating pork will be forbidden within the Japanese army base, which is to be constructed outside the southern town of Samawa.
"For us it is a matter of course," the spokesman said. "We are not going there to wage war, but to help with reconstruction. The success of the mission depends largely on how far we are able to establish friendly relations with local people."
The deployment of troops to take part in humanitarian work following the war in Iraq constitutes Japan's riskiest military mission since World War II.
But favorable Iraqi reaction to the mustachioed Colonel Masahisa Sato, the leader of an advance party dispatched to the southern Iraqi town of Samawa last month, seems to have proved the advantages of facial hair.
"What a magnificent mustache. He looks just like an Iraqi," a Japanese newspaper quoted one local resident as saying.
(Bron)