barbed

Between the outpost and the ruins rises a sand berm about two stories high and topped with barbed wire.

Though the military presence has since mostly relocated farther north and behind barbed wire, a bizarre, lingering, nostalgic version of an older America persists there.

As the convoy departed Hajin and headed back to the SDF base, it passed former American encampments that sat empty in the desert behind thick barriers topped with barbed wire.

Teams and leagues sprouted within the camps, an arrangement described by one player as “baseball behind barbed wire.”

Footage has shown militia members—men and women; often elderly, slightly plump Venezuelans—running obstacle courses, crawling under barbed wire and firing rifles.