U.S. may not know where its troops are

Afghanistan. Albania. Algeria. American Samoa. Andorra. Angola. Anguilla. Antarctica…. Afghanistan. Albania. Algeria. American Samoa. Andorra. Angola. Anguilla. Antarctica. Antigua and Barbuda. Argentina.

You may not know where to look for these countries on a map if asked to identify them.

Roger Andresen, a former fiber optic engineer from Georgia — the state in our nation, not the country — doesn’t think America would be such a potent world power if strength were measured by knowledge of geography. So he has started what he calls “the world’s biggest ongoing geography puzzle” on the Web.

The Web site is www.geographyolympics.com, and has attracted more than 300,000 players from 179 countries so far. As of last Friday, the United States was in 88th place.

Czech Republic. Denmark. Djibouti. Dominica. Dominican Republic. East Timor. Ecuador. Egypt. El Salvador. Eritrea.

During a round of Geography Olympics, players have 200 seconds to locate 10 randomly selected countries on a map of the world with the names blanked out. The best players usually find seven out of 10 locations. Americans’ average score is approximately 5.7 out of 10. Belgium and Italy are consistently high scorers. Cambodia was most recently in last place, with an average of four correctly identified countries out of 10. But Cambodia only had 253 participants playing at the time.

Kuwait. Kurgyzstan. Laos. Latvia. Lebanon. Lesotha. Liberia. Libya. Liecthenstein. Lithuania.

There are more than 46,000 Americans that have taken part in this online geography competition. Norway and Sweden are also big players, with more than 50,000 participants each — but they are not successful either. The two countries were last recorded in 84th and 173rd place, respectively.

“That’s what happens when thousands of people join in [the game] from new countries,” Andresen said. “Initially, they’re terrible. They bring down the country.”

Clearly all avid and passionate geographers should do their patriotic duty and participate in the Geography Olympics so that the United States can join the winners circle — a place normally occupied by the Philippines, Madagascar and Trinidad and Tobago.

It’s tough to keep up with the rest of the world. Here in the Western Hemisphere, things usually stay the same. How are more than 293 million U.S. citizens supposed to keep track of all the newly forming countries across the ocean? Some textbooks don’t even list all the countries that were once a part of the former Soviet Union.

We should at least know the names and locations of 70 percent of the countries in which there are U.S. troops. OK. Maybe 50 percent is good enough.

The United States might perform better if we taught our students better. If we educated children about world geography early and often, we might improve. There’s no reason why geography classes and bees end at about seventh grade.

Tuvalu. Uganda. Ukraine. United Arab Emirates. United Kingdom. United States. Uruguay. Uzbekistan. Vanuatu. Venezuela.