Guests With Guns

"No, the SCN's are not allowed in the DFAC," she says.
"What's a SCN?" I ask.
"What a TCN and HCN used to be," she smiles.
"Why did they change it?"
"Someone objected to the word 'host'."
"None of them? But they were last week..." I ask.
"Different regime now, now they are banned."
"Oh, so we gave them a politically correct name, but banned them from the DFAC?"
"Yup."

In this, the theatre of war, the Americans rule. So the Americans, with their coalition (probably about three of them left, I would estimate), have ranked affiliate nations. Not the fighting nations, mind you, since they are primary since they are on our side. But the nations of workers that tend to us, feed us, scoop up our garbage and suck out our porta-johns. The workers from all other nations (other than Iraq) are referred to as TCNs, or Third Country Nationals. Iraqis who work on the bases are referred to as HCNs, or Host Country Nationals. Except for one sticky problem. The Iraqi's aren't hosting us, and don't want us here. So we really can't call this a host nation, when we have essentially occupied it, though the military gets very angry when you refer to this as an occupation. I don't know. I'm not a military brat, but if it looks like an occupation, smells like an occupation, and smokes like an occupation, an occupation it is. If the Iraqi's were actually hosting, then we Americans would be the guests, right? Yeah. I can see us all gathered around the dinner table. We have brought a nice bottle of, uh, milk or something, and we are trading stories with a friendly Iraqi family. Yes, we are guests.

Guests with guns.

"OK, Joe, so we gotta change this, the General says that the new Iraqi government opposes our use of the phrase 'host.'
"What are we gonna call it, then?"
"Well, we are number one, right? So they gotta be number two."
"SCN. Secondary Country National. Sound good?"
"Disperse to troops at once."