Your Passport Please

Last night we had our first big Bag Drag of
the year. 128 people are heading north on
a C-17. One thing that's easy to forget while
you're at McMurdo that there are so many people
here other than Americans. I only checked in
half of those 128 people and I saw passports
from no less than seven different countries.
Including Yugoslavia of all places. Granted,
the list was overwhelmingly top heavy with
Americans, but Kiwis were predominant as well.
Besides those I've also seen Chinese, Japanese,
Brits, Australians, Italians, South Africans,
Russians...and it goes on and on. There has
been talk recently of shrinking the importance
of McMurdo in the US Program. With all of these
folks from other countries coming through our
doors, I think they might want to rethink that
plan.