On the whole, I am proud of Americans in the UAE.

The thought struck me again over the weekend, while dealing with players and coaches in the Emirates American Football League.

The league is justly proud that the majority of its players (57 percent) come from somewhere other than the U.S., and includes participants from more than 35 countries.

But most of the best players in the league are Yanks, and the coaches, and after three or four days of dealing with them it occurred to me, anew, that these guys are solid people.

And I like to think that they represent something approaching the norm, in the UAE: Yanks who get on with what they are doing, without much complaint, without getting in trouble, who represent the U.S. well.

This could be a function of the sort of people you find in the professions here that seem to attract the most Yanks:

1. The military.

2. Teachers.

If you meet an American in the UAE, one of perhaps 40,000 Yanks living in the country, the odds are pretty good they will be working in one of those two fields.

Americans are seen, at this point in history, as experts in the art of war, certainly when it comes to the machinery of war, and guys who have been career military often find employment here as advisers to the UAE military.

I interviewed one of them, the quarterback for one of the Dubai teams, and he had spent 12 years in the U.S. Marines, and had been both a drill instructor and part of the Marines detail around the White House. “One year with Bill Clinton, four years with George Bush,” he said.

Another, a coach, first came to the Gulf for the the First Gulf War, back in 1990. He worked in military intelligence, he said — and yes, thank you, he has heard the one about “military intelligence” being an oxymoron.

The military guys in particular seem self-sufficient and adaptable. Many of them were stationed around the world during the careers. Some were travelers as kids, too, following military parents around the world. A new, exotic address is nothing new to them. They get to work.

Then there are the teachers, who tend to be younger and female. But they also seem enthusiastic and competent and ready to solve problems and blend into the pastiche of cultures that is the UAE.

The key is that Americans I have encountered do not sit around and complain about how the UAE is not the USA. Maybe they do so at home, but they don’t open the conversation with how difficult it is to buy Wheat Thins.

The Yanks I have met over here know the world is a big place, and most of it is not the 50 states. They do what they need to do to adapt, they are fair and respectful to others, they are dependable and earn their money.

I think they represent their country well, that’s all.