Years ago in the wilds of the Iranian desert 175 miles east of Bandar Abbas....in a gulag known as Papa Charlie....I arrived to a place with tents and one block building and no heat. Lots of spirit and spirits however. My first night I was introduced to this game call Uckers...such a polite parlor game it is too...being a US Army Warrant Officer pilot....some natural traits required for that neatly fit into the Uckers thing. The CP then extant, a former British Army Major....thought himself an Uckers player of some rank. First game on my own with him as an opponent....whipped him like I owned him....to the extent he flung the board, bits, dice, and beer bottles halfway to Bandar Abbas...questioned my parentage, birthright, and was downright rude about being whupped. I guess my sniggering about his being such a good loser did not help any!
Years later...introduced the game to Somalia....having an alcohol ravaged brain....needed some help on the layout of the board....thus we got onto the Brown and Root Sat Phone...called Toys-R-Us in Houston, Texas and got a store manager to pull a parchessi board out of a game and tell us the layout. The fun part was getting him to believe we were in Somalia and were serious about it. On the third call he finally decided he was not hallucinating or something and helped us out.
