I've watched it before and sat down to watch it again this afternoon.

My question is- Are there really compounds full of American families living in Saudi and what is there purpose for being there?

^ that.



If there is something a Saudi can pay someone else to instead of them having to do it, they will.



 

Yes.

The oil won't come out of the ground and get into barrels by itself.

What jobs do most of the Americans there do?

My father, (PhD - Organic Chem) in the early '80s when he was in industry was offered a fuckton and a half of money to come and teach Chemistry in Saudi Arabia. House compound, driver, all that shit included on top of the pay.

My mom said "Hell, no" and killed that idea.

Yup.

Also, it provides a place for westerners to live where they can relax a bit more than they could if they were out in town (e.g., women covering up, etc.).

This....lots of SAS/SBS retires in the Saud national guard.

Those primitive screwheads don't know how to train their own doctors, scientists, or engineers.

Quite literally if the West stopped providing talent for them, they would be running around chasing goats in the desert within a decade.

Americans found their oil and built that all for them.

They continue to use outside people because they don't want their own unpredictable people jihading their money.

Not just Americans,  they hire people from all over the world.   Like someone else said, they won't do anything they can hire someone else to do.

Yup. It's a pretty comfortable life.

Except when you try to run to the bank outside the compound straight from the tennis court in shorts and short sleeves. Then the religious police tackle you and cover you up in a spare man dress

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Yes, but not as much as we had in the 70's and 80's during most of the construction and right after the "gas" shortages.



I lived in Abqaiq from 77 to 81.  My dad worked for an ARAMCO contractor.  The ARAMCO camps were nice, had everything and better than living in the US.  American and Brits lived in these camps.  Most ARAMCO US workers come from Texas or California.  After the initial hate of getting there I ended up liking it a lot. Had a dirt bike and rode that thing daily, and a lot.  Alone in the Saudi desert at 12, 13, 14 years old.  We had pools, rec centers, snack bars.  I live in AZ now, so the weather is like AZ.  We would go to Daharan or Damman for shopping.



Now imagine how it was when I went back to Saudi as a infantry squad leader during the Gulf War.  While there we had ARAMCO families visit and offer troops to their homes or camps for cookouts.  We had way too many troops for everyone to have that experience.



Most of the camps are gone but there is still a large contingent of US ex-pats. If I could I'd go back there in a heart beat.  Money is excellent.  



Funny thing how The Kingdom was filmed in AZ and I now live here.  And although they were FBI 1811's I'm now an 1811, not FBI.  The ARAMCO camps in the movie do not do the real ARAMCO camps justice.  The US has very strong ties with the Saudi Royal Family and they've always treated US ARAMCO and mil personel very well although many are on the arrogant side.  They generally know we ensure their prosperity.



As a kid I learned a lot that a typical kid would never learn or be exposed in the US.  And impossible to today's standard.  I remember on my RM125 riding in the middle of nowhere.  Came across a Bedouin camp who had sheep.  There was a huge area covered in water and sheep shit.  I spun out and wiped out in the wet sandy sheep shit.  They laughed and deserved it.  They gave me water and tea.  At 14 I sat down and drank tea with a couple of Bedouin guys (father and sons) when I was 14 years old. I also had a chance to ride in the neutral area and near Iraq and Kuwait in 1980 in the 1st month of the war.  We saw the columns of smoke far away.  Funny how I went back 10 years later.  



I took the pics in the desert with my compact 110 Kodak camera. One thing you learn quickly by riding in the Saudi desert is how to fix things PDQ.  These were pre cell phone days.

Very cool post.  

Had an uncle leave the States as soon as his youngest graduated in the early '80s.  Did a lot of time in the ME, Russia, New Zealand.  He said the climate changed in the ME after the fall of the wall, he claims that the US was viewed as a protector of the region from the USSR.

You think they would wait a decade?

Point taken.

That's a very interesting perspective, especially to go back in GW1.

Any pics from Desert Storm?

I personally didn't like Riyadh just because of the heat, and I was raised in the high desert in the Southwest US, very high tolerance for dehydration and endurance.

Here's some during the Desert Shield time.  We were based by a newly built airport that turned out to be the largest military air base in history at that time.



















We lived like this most of the time:

I know a person that was raised in a Saudi-Aramco American neighborhood over there.

Just look at KSA's Little League team(s).

Yes. Be grateful there are compounds where you can be American and not worry about the Sharia Police.

Looks like the Imperial Sand Dunes.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you were an 1896 at one point given your screen name.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

If you ever watch the little league world series Saudi Arabia  is sometimes there it's basically a bunch of pasty white kids whose parents work in the country

Bingo on both.  Then you have an idea which station.  I love the BP.



And as far as the comparison with ISDRA is dead on.  The real reason I hit the dunes locally is because it reminds me of the awesome times in Saudi,  Except Saudi sand is coarser and packs tighter.  ISDRA sand is soft and whiter.  And Saudi dunes are unrestricted for...... a large area.  The IB fence that went up after Louie Aguilar's death kinda sucks now.



 

Small Arfcom world.

Louie was a friend. He would've hated that fence.


Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

One of our gun club members from a sister club worked there for a year. He said everyone he meet hated him & Americans. He got into a car accident over there. He was told the local leo it was not his fault. They told him it was his fault because if he had not come to their country the accident would not have happen

I believe this was pre obama

And the Saudis sure as shit won't do it themselves.  Lazy worthless fuckers.

If you want the best import Americans. I just hope no one steals Nolo from us!

 
I know one that is there with a job with aviation.

Absolutely, YES!

There are several compounds in Saudi Arabia where American expats live away from the Saudis and Third World country nationals. the Saudis did this to minimize "Western" influence. Children of expats are allowed in the kingdom and go to international schools separate from the Saudis. When I was there in the early 1980s, they didn't allow high-school aged kids in the Kingdom. They had to go to school back in the U.S. or go to boarding school in Europe.

Living apart from the Saudis allowed us expats to make plenty of moonshine and home-made beer. They were pretty clueless that they provided all the ingredients right under their noses. We were even able to hold clandestine Christian services without interference from the religious police.

The money out there is beyond compare, but we had a joke about the Saudis: If the Saudis thought sex was work, they'd hire a foreigner to do it.

Sounds like they got more money and don't know what to do with it.

I worked there from 2014 through 2015 and lived on a compound that was all American, Brits, Irish and South African except for camp labor which was Filipino and Indian.



Camp was nice, tennis courts, gym, BBQ areas and cafeteria with camp staff that cleaned our rooms everyday and did our laundry.  Only thng that made that place tolerable was being with other Americans, Brits and so on otherwise the place totally sucked balls.



Saudis are the laziest, dumbest, lying, cheating conniving and egotistical MF'ers I have ever met.  The money was huge @ $90+ an hour working 12 hours a day 6 days a week.  Not sure if I would ever work there again though mainly because the place is full of Saudis.



We did have our own moonshine and I got quite good at making it.  If you got caught with it you were royally fucked.

Yeah.

So on a different note, where can I get a tshirt of your avatar?

I watched them film some of the highway scenes on the "Red Mountain Freeway" before it was finished. Pretty eerie seeing highway signs labeled in Arabic in AZ.
I still watch it from time to time.

Another kinda weird, low budget film shot in this area is "The Wild Seven" with Robert Loggia. The gun shop in the movie is my LGS and still go there (in their new local). The opening scene where they are driving away from a mountain is the road right behind my house.

A girl I knew in Murfreesboro, Tn lived in Saudi Arabia for awhile when her father was overseeing the building of some hospitals.

I lived on one back in 2001. It was one of the ones that got bombed a year or two later which that movie was based on.

I was 10 years old. Dad worked for Raytheon.

My Dad worked for Arabian Sundt in Daharan as a plastering supervisor back in the late 70's. It was for Aramco Oil employees and families. He said the compound looked like Anytown, Suburbia when he left.

Anything that requires skill, knowledge and some semblance of a work ethic.

Fucking retards

Very cool

Nice jungle boots.

You can be a christian in KSA. No need to be clandestine about it. Illegal to be atheist though.

 

Yep my buddy lives in one for the oil company he works for.

J-

Not with the muttawa running around. I knew of a case where someone was baptizing people in the Red Sea. They had a hard-on to flog them, but were extradited instead.

The knowledge here never ceases to amaze.

Saudis don't do manual labor...they are above it.

If you find the Saudi compounds interesting you would maybe find it interesting to read about the American compounds where entire families lived in the 1960s
They were there on infrastructure building

This