Tongan troops arrive in Kuwait, weekly paper reports

Tonga's Iraqi-bound troops have arrived in Kuwait, where they will spend two weeks acclimatizing to the Middle Eastern weather, prior to their deployment. The Kalonikali reports the troops trained with M16 rifles in Pendleton, California, and took a crash course in basic Arabic as well as Iraqi culture. According to spokesperson Sergeant Siaosi Moleni, they missed the Tongan food, but "found solace in ice cream which was available in copious quantity at all meal times." Highlights from Tonga's newspapers, September 10-13, 2007.