Chow in Iraq

   Chow in my part of Iraq is not bad. And I’ll venture to say it could be a lot worse.

   We have to walk approximately ¾ of a mile, one way, to reach the dining facility, which would be a recipe for an enjoyable little jaunt if I was in Utah or perhaps Vermont in that grand time of year that fools summer into dropping her leaves.

   But it’s not nearly so scenic here, and the temperature can resemble that of a furnace. Also, the mud has not come yet, but it will.

   We drive occasionally. We get in our HMMWVs or the pickup trucks and little cars that have been “confiscated," and we drive over. A few of us have mountain bikes, and we ride them to the dining facility.

   But most of the time, you just walk. You kick the dust and dirt and rocks, and enjoy countless hours of meaningless small talk. You pass hundreds of others coming and going who hail from every state and territory you can name. And if you have the distinct fortune of seeing a softball game on the (surprise here) dirt softball diamond, you get some real excitement.

    You walk in and choose one of four serving lines, each with the same food. The servers usually limit their interaction with you to a smile and the words, “What else, sir?”

    First you hit the drink coolers. There are Gatorade bottles, V8, little containers of apple juice, orange juice, and fruit punch. There is no fresh milk here – only those little vessels made of some weird combination of cardboard and plastic that hold skim milk, full cream milk, chocolate milk, strawberry milk, and banana milk. There are sodas too. Coke, Sprite, Orange soda, Strawberry soda, Pepsi, and the like. The cans have English language on one side and Arabic on the other. And of course, there is always bottled water.

     Grab a tray, and you’re into the main line, cafeteria style. There may be fried fish, Salisbury steak, prime rib, spaghetti and meatballs, barbecue ribs, tuna casserole, veal, sweet and sour chicken, baked fish, chicken parmesan, or something else – all those predictable meals that the rest of the world assumes all Americans must eat sometime or another. They must get an extremely good price on chicken out here, because it appears in virtually every meal.

   Sometimes you come out of the heat of the day and there are  fresh lobster tails, crab bites, crab claws (huge, Dungeness), fried scallops, fried shrimp, and butter sauce for dipping. Wednesday is seafood night, so it’s something to look forward to if you’re into that kind of thing.

   You can then choose peas, corn, baked beans, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and any number of other veggies to complement your meal. Then you move on to the “short order” choices. In fact, many times we just say, “Short order,” or “I’ll take a plate please,” indicating you want the fast food fare.

   We’re talking pizza most days, hot wings every day, corn dogs, French fries, onion rings, egg rolls, sausage, hot dogs, and some more stuff that I can’t recall right now because I’m getting hungry for some of that mighty fine Army chow.

   Grab your plastic fork, spoon and knife, and you walk through a corridor into a vast room filled with chatter and movement. There are Soldiers, Marines, Seabees, Air Force, civilian contractors, Indian workers, Iraqi workers, and more folks who I haven’t identified yet.

   The two salad bars stay stocked with fresh fruit, puddings, salad with many toppings to choose from, Cole slaw, and noodle salad – all the things you might expect from a pretty darn good salad bar. The dessert area usually offers two to three different choices of cookies, cakes, honey-buns, and muffins. There is a sandwich bar next to that, and the man working behind it is not the least bit shy about piling meat and cheese onto your bread of choice.

   And then comes the Baskin-Robbins ice cream stand, which usually cycles through chocolate, vanilla, mint chocolate chip, strawberry, and pralines and cream. There is whipped cream, coconut, strawberry, caramel, and chocolate to top your ice cream with. There’s also a cooler with ice cream sandwiches and cones.

   Some of our guys on certain shifts have their chow brought out to them. There is something to be said for that, although you miss out on the little “extras.”

   First of all, you don’t have to travel to the chow hall. You minimize your time moving around the FOB, which decreases your chances of a personal confrontation with an incoming attack, however unlikely that may be. Also, you could get fat eating in this chow hall. You really could.

   Once you’re finished, and you’ve contemplated the scene around you and what remains of your day over the edge of a toothpick, you carry your tray out of a door that leads to an Iraqi man (I think) behind a trash bin whose job it is to shake the can as you dump your food to conserve space in the bag, and then to take the trash out.

   There is no silverware here. No ceramic plates or fine china – all is plastic. No salt and pepper shakers in the shape of food or artistic little chrome objects with cool sliding lids – only paper packets. No glasses – only cans and bottles and plastic cups.

   Do people complain about this? No, not really.

   Do these small niceties enhance the food in any way? Perhaps.

   The fact is, sitting down at your own table with your family and eating home cooked food on a big ceramic dish to the tinkling sounds of silverware that has a nice weight in your hand, and seeing your beverage move around through the sides of a glass is a subtle little luxury that most of us have probably forgotten about, but will enjoy all the more when we have it again. Over time, it will become another unnoticed detail in the tapestry of American life. 

   I wonder how many times I’ve eaten dinner and been preoccupied, unaware of the simple joy that a common meal in America can bring. Those rituals of eating that occur every single day through countless foggy windows and on endless tables. There are the quiet meals, teaching the kids to be polite and pass the potatoes. And there are the loud meals – eating pizza and drinking beer during Monday Night Football. There are fun meals, when something exciting has just happened and you discuss it between bites of broccoli and steak, eating for nourishment alone. And there are the thoughtful meals, when you eat but something is weighing down your mind, and you spoon the soup into your mouth, staring into it like you’ll find an answer there.

   When I get home, I’ll sit there and savor the experience. I'll stare into the  soup. I'll gaze at my Big Mac as I chomp it down in huge bites. You’ll have to pry me from the dinner table hours after all the ice has melted, the chicken is cold, and the last bit of gravy has been sopped up with a buttered roll.

     You know, we really can’t complain about the food here - we’re in the middle of Iraq, and we eat like Kings.

    "Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." 

                                                                                                                                                               -Voltaire

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