Stage Fight

The war in Iraq hasn't made for great movies. But in the theater, conflict breeds creativity

Pavel Antonov

A Scottish regiment bolsters the U.S. in Black Watch

They run, March, curse, fight, sing--and occasionally die--on a cavernous expanse of stage nearly half a football field wide. In their dress-up uniforms, they're an exotic-looking bunch: wearing kilts, playing bagpipes, sporting tam-o'-shanters with a red feather. This Scottish army regiment seems out of place in Iraq, transferred from Basra to bolster U.S. troops bogged down in the "triangle of death" near Baghdad. But their plainspoken, Highland-accented gripes about the war have a familiar ring. "You're no' really doing the job you're trained for," says one soldier. "You're no' defending your country. We're invading their country and f______ their day up."

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