In Kandahar, you can get burgers and fries at U.S. 'boardwalk'

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN - It was a broiling fall evening in this southern Afghan battle zone, and Army Sgt. Charles Reed wanted to celebrate his birthday in style - at T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk.

So Reed, a military intelligence soldier, ducked inside the Western diner with a dozen friends. He climbed atop a chair and began a slow, solo groove as smiling Asian waiters in baseball caps clapped a carefully practiced birthday cheer.

Two nonalcoholic Dutch beers and a $30 steak-and-shrimp dinner later, Reed stepped out of the air-conditioned cool of the wood-floored eatery - whose walls are plastered with guitars, surfboards and Elvis posters - and back into reality: the sweltering desert heat of a giant NATO military base ensconced in a rocky Afghan moonscape crawling with insurgents.

"It was kind of unreal," said Reed, of Steamboat Springs, Colo., describing his recent 34th birthday fete at Kandahar airfield, better known as KAF. "At least for a few minutes, you could pretend you were somewhere else. It was like going back home."

The only difference, perhaps: Most of the people ordering cheeseburgers and milkshakes were decked out in combat fatigues and were heavily armed.

T.G.I. Friday's is the apex of war-zone escapism on KAF's famed "boardwalk." This Wild West-like quadrangle features three dozen glass-door shops and coffee bars that form a surreal counterpoint to the daily fighting going on just outside the base's walls.

Coalition forces arriving here this year as part of the U.S. surge to curb the mushrooming insurgency have been shocked to discover such elaborate dining and entertainment options.

Flashing neon signs beckon customers to the red-and-white tablecloths inside Mamma Mia's Pizzeria. The Green Bean cafe ("Honor First, Coffee Second") offers frozen iced lattes and cinnamon buns. There is a barbershop, an AT&T call center, multiple Wifi networks and a cyber-cafe in which soldiers can video-chat with family and friends back home.

Around half a square mile long, the covered walkway surrounds a dirt pitch hosting the occasional rock concert. Troops from NATO nations gather nightly in shorts and tennis shoes to watch basketball, flag football and volleyball games. There is even a Canadian-dominated field hockey rink - and, one night recently, an acoustic guitar jam.

There are ATMs, too, and plenty to shop for: Cuban cigars, condoms, suits. The German military store sells a "terror chess" set pitting U.S. forces against Taliban guerrillas on a map of Afghanistan (the American queen is the Statue of Liberty, while George W. Bush and a newly added Barack Obama are kings; their counterparts: a woman clad in a blue burqa and Osama bin Laden).

U.S. Capt. Braden Coleman, a pilot from North Myrtle Beach, S.C., remembered sitting down on the boardwalk shortly after being deployed here in May.

"I couldn't believe I was in Kandahar eating a double-dipped chocolate ice cream at sunset on a Saturday afternoon," said Coleman, 30, who was downing a strawberry smoothie from the French bakery behind him, where an Eiffel Tower climbs a wall above picnic tables with fake potted plants.