A favorite pastime I remember from Iraq was “Dumpster Diving”. Typically, near the housing areas—whether the area was tents or CHUs, there were the trash dumpsters where, obviously, trash was placed. Not only did these dumpsters contain trash—they also contained very valuable assets from decorating your “area”.
The Army has a long standing order of work; “to continually improve your foxhole.” This has many benefits. The first benefit to improving your foxhole or “position” is to make the area more and more secure—adding fortifications to protect the occupant from indirect fire or detection by the enemy. Another benefit is that it keeps the Soldier busy doing something for his benefit which is much better than having Soldiers simply stare their way in to complete an utter boredom. A final benefit is that continually improving your foxhole has major morale benefits to the Soldier. As the Soldier has been focusing on himself—the personal space becomes close as it can be to become a home. It is not uncommon for a single Soldier to have a quite nice set of quarters, simply from his own hard work and ingenuity.
With the concept of improving the fox holes, the dumpster becomes a distribution point for material to be used in improvements. Here you can find chairs, tables, bookcases, or, sometimes, electronics—discarded from the previous occupants of earlier rotations. It is a standing courtesy to pass along what you can to the next unit. All Soldiers buy stuff. Much of this stuff isn’t sent back to the States—it is used during the year (or more) long deployment and then passed on to the next guys.
When the new guys find this stuff outside the dumpster—it is quickly carted away into the new tent or CHU. Soon, the once empty shell, now, has a bookcase—then a TV stand—then a dancing Elvis…and on and on. Who knows what these rooms will look like if the wars continue?
Dumpster Diving is the cheapest (and best) way to furnish your down range home—bar none.