Monday, April 16, 2007

Bread from the Table

In general, I don't complain much about Army food. Perhaps it's because of years of living on my own, perhaps it's because of the region I'm from- I don't know. I usually like Army food.

Out here in the boonies, I feel very fortunate that I don't have to eat a shelf-stable MRE every day. The down side is that we are too far out to have much variety or fresh produce, and our diet tends to be heavy in grease and fried food. Friends and family have really helped in this regard. I have dried fruit, nuts and seeds, jerky and packaged fish all thoughtfully sent to me. These things are shared with my squad, though they in general tend to go more for the candy I get.

For the last two mornings, I've had english muffins with tahini and organic raspberry jam. The camp is out of milk, but the night we ran out, I received some boxes of dried milk, so I'm still able to get my calcium. And, being a bit off, I just enjoy some powdered milk in my coffee, to which I often add a little Splenda (yet another gift from a friend), as well.

It's nice to have options. Thanks again to everyone who has helped make this deployment easier for me. I will hopefully be out of this camp within two weeks. Grant was talking about that this morning.

Our unit is being replaced by South Carolina troops, who evidently have no plans to spread themselves across the country in mortar teams, the way my unit has. There is a trip to Iraq planned for the 18*th after they return from Afghanistan, so it makes sense to bring the 18*th back soon, so troops going on the next deployment have as much time as possible to recover.

Since that makes so much sense, Grant is afraid we'll get extended to stay out here and provide fire support. I hope he's fretting for nothing: even the Army can occasionally make a good decision.

No comments:


HallowE09