144 I Can Read You Like a Book E
On one of my night guard shifts during Operation Desert Storm,
I saw the effect of our U.S. military culture starkly. With night
vision goggles, the world takes on a green glow that allows you to
see detail relatively well up close, but poorly at distance. We were
attached to the Kuwaiti brigade in an advisory role. I commented to
the fellow soldier on guard at the time how easy it is to pick an
American by posture. We joked that it made the Iraqi snipers’
target acquisition much easier. The reason was simple: American
soldiers had a very different cultural concept of time, mission, and
focus that surfaced in their posture. Many of the Kuwaitis fighting
to free their homeland were expatriate college students who
returned to fight for the liberation of Kuwait. The culture of Kuwait
places little value on promptness and it shows in the gait of the
people. The fact that they were not military and non-Americans
affected how straight each stood, where they directed their gaze,
and so on. If many Americans have a tendency to stroll, most
Arabs take it to new levels.
Openness
I will look at “closed” before “open” to engender your
perspective on the topic.
When you started reading this book, one of your suppositions
was likely that crossed arms serve as a defense, or meant that
someone wanted to close you out. Did someone tell you that’s what
it meant, or did you feel it? Crossed arms are, in fact, one way that
a person can block you out, but it can also signal fear, cold,
