The barracks club in the Girdwood British army base in north Belfast is fittingly called 'The Interface Bar'. For soldiers on stand-by for contentious marches in the area and for veterans of the Holy Cross protests, some would think an interface would be the last place they would choose to spend their free time.
With the situation in north Belfast calmer than in previous years, the army press office offered a tour of the base off the Crumlin Road, as well as a patrol in an army land rover.
It was to Girdwood that Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher were taken after the murder of teenager Peter McBride. Police were denied access to the two for ten hours.
Earlier this year, the SDLP called for the 20-acre site to be closed down and made available for housing.
But the moment the base is home to the Second Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers which is currently stationed in north Belfast.
An army spokeswoman explained on Friday that the battalion consisted of 600 soldiers at Girdwood, although that number could be doubled for the 12th of July.
"Ordinarily it can range from anything from 300 to 500, without giving too much away to the enemy," she said.
Asked if he could ever see a situation where the army would be accepted by the majority of nationalists, one officer replied, "It's not for us to be accepted or not. We will be here as long as we're needed.
"We don't care what religion people are. We just have to get on with our job."
A company commander said he was astonished to come back this year to see how things had changed over the past decade.
"It's all caming down. I was in Newry in the early '90s, so to come back and see the situation now with no military there says a lot," he said.
He said he had no preconceptions before his first tour in the north, but that most soldiers were shocked by the level of sectarianism.
"They find it difficult to understand the hatred on both sides. What's most important amongst the soldiers is what football team you support," he said.
While football and rugby seem to be the sports of choice in the barracks, there is also a set of nets for gaelic games on their football pitch.
"I'd play, but I don't understand the rules," one officer said before a sergeant helped him out.
"I saw a match last week. Who was it again?....Glentoran? Yeah, it's just a compromise between football and rugby," the sergeant said.
The soldiers also have squash and volleyball courts and a sunbed, while the Interface Bar contains a pool table, a widescreen TV, DVDs and videos.
There are four internet terminals and apparently web chatrooms take up a lot of the mens' spare time.
On one wall is a poster for the Liam Neeson/Harrison Ford film K-19: The Widowmaker, a film based in a submarine, which seems appropriate given the surroundings.
"It seems small once you've been here for a while. It starts closing in on you," one officer said.
"It can be a ghost camp here sometimes, but we want to get the boys back home as soon as is possible so they can have a better quality of life.
"But you get used to it here. First of all young soldiers would think 'Oh God' before coming over, but they soon see that Northern Ireland is a very, very nice place."
But no matter how nice the place is, the men seem to find the lack of wives, girlfriends and the opportunity to socialise frustrating.
In the Land Rover, a female officer tells the three males in the vehicle she has been in the army for 15 years.
One says, "Fifteen years? I thought they didn't take anyone under 16," to groans from his cringing colleagues.
The same Desperate Dan then spots two attractive girls getting into a car and almost breaks his neck ogling and "Phwoar!"-ing.
He is soon brought back down to earth when two women cross the Limestone Road in front of them and the one pushing a pram gives the soldiers an angry one-finger salute.
Welcome to north Belfast.
