Chickens as Bio-Sentries Doesn't Fly (lAST LINE IS FUNNNNY)

LIVING SUPPORT AREA 7, Kuwait -- Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken has been shut down, at least for now. The chickens are dead. Just more than a week after 43 chickens were brought here to ride into battle with the Marines, all but two have died. Most were buried in the soft sand outside of regiment headquarters. Small, wooden tombstones mark their graves. There is one for Captain Popeye, one for Pfc. King, another for Lance Cpl. Pecker and, finally, one marking the grave of The Unknown Chicken. The plan was to use the chickens the way miners once used caged canaries to warn them of poisonous gas underground. If the Marines moved into southern Iraq during a war, the chickens would be an early signal if Iraq launched biological or chemical weapons. But the locally bought birds started dying the day they arrived, and they just kept dying, said Sgt. Ken Griffin, a public affairs officer for the 7th Regiment here. "Nobody knows why they died," said Griffin, 26, of Houston. "I just heard that they were boxed up really tight when they arrived and they started dying from the moment they got here. And it didn't help that nobody here really knows anything about chickens." Maybe so, but Chief Warrant Officer Ken King, a city boy from North Providence, R.I., apparently is a quick learner. King, the nuclear, biological and chemical officer for the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, is the only person entrusted with the chickens who still has any birds alive. He lost three of his original five, but by then, King, whose artillery battalion was one of the first to receive the chickens, said he had figured out what might be the problem. "Chickens normally peck the dirt," said King, 31. "But here, we've only got sand. So, they were pecking the sand and getting it all clogged up in the giblets or nostrils or whatever you call it. So, the first thing we did was to get them off the sand. "Then, we got them away from the other sick chickens and got them out in the open air." Nobody in the camp Friday knew whether the Marines would buy new chickens. But Griffin had another idea. He was ferrying about 25 reporters around the camp last week when something triggered the base's alarm for a chemical or biological attack. "This is not a drill!" Marines shouted. "This is not a drill!" Griffin said most of the journalists panicked because only about five of them had brought the gas masks that the military has repeatedly told them to have. Fortunately, the alarm proved false. "Hell, we don't need chickens," Griffin remarked Friday. "We can just use you journalists."

sorry - meant to preview and posted. Here it is formatted.

BY RON HARRIS
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LIVING SUPPORT AREA 7, Kuwait -- Operation Kuwaiti Field Chicken has been shut down, at least for now.
The chickens are dead.

Just more than a week after 43 chickens were brought here to ride into battle with the Marines, all but two have died.

Most were buried in the soft sand outside of regiment headquarters. Small, wooden tombstones mark their graves.

There is one for Captain Popeye, one for Pfc. King, another for Lance Cpl. Pecker and, finally, one marking the grave of The Unknown Chicken.

The plan was to use the chickens the way miners once used caged canaries to warn them of poisonous gas underground. If the Marines moved into southern Iraq during a war, the chickens would be an early signal if Iraq launched biological or chemical weapons.

But the locally bought birds started dying the day they arrived, and they just kept dying, said Sgt. Ken Griffin, a public affairs officer for the 7th Regiment here.

"Nobody knows why they died," said Griffin, 26, of Houston. "I just heard that they were boxed up really tight when they arrived and they started dying from the moment they got here. And it didn't help that nobody here really knows anything about chickens."

Maybe so, but Chief Warrant Officer Ken King, a city boy from North Providence, R.I., apparently is a quick learner. King, the nuclear, biological and chemical officer for the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, is the only person entrusted with the chickens who still has any birds alive.

He lost three of his original five, but by then, King, whose artillery battalion was one of the first to receive the chickens, said he had figured out what might be the problem.

"Chickens normally peck the dirt," said King, 31. "But here, we've only got sand. So, they were pecking the sand and getting it all clogged up in the giblets or nostrils or whatever you call it. So, the first thing we did was to get them off the sand.

"Then, we got them away from the other sick chickens and got them out in the open air."

Nobody in the camp Friday knew whether the Marines would buy new chickens. But Griffin had another idea.

He was ferrying about 25 reporters around the camp last week when something triggered the base's alarm for a chemical or biological attack.

"This is not a drill!" Marines shouted. "This is not a drill!"

Griffin said most of the journalists panicked because only about five of them had brought the gas masks that the military has repeatedly told them to have. Fortunately, the alarm proved false.

"Hell, we don't need chickens," Griffin remarked Friday. "We can just use you journalists."

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