As daylight faded and the winter cold set in, soldiers huddled inside a crude wooden hut to tuck into Thanksgiving turkeys the unit itself had fattened and to give thanks for having survived a year of combat in Afghanistan.
“They become your family and being able to eat together like this, to break bread together is a highlight,” said 1st Sergeant Gonzalo Lassally of soldiers from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron sitting down to the traditional turkey plus ham basted in brown sugar and honey, five varieties of pies and nonalcoholic beer. A stack of local flatbread added an Afghan touch.
A much-scaled down version of the feast was helicoptered to a handful of soldiers in an observation post perched on a 2,100m spur.
“We’re thankful for all still being here. We’ve been lucky, on the lower spectrum when it comes to casualties,” said Lassally, a father of three from Deltona, Florida, who has spent four Thanksgivings, three Christmases and “quite a few birthdays” away from home.
The American holiday began with a 25-man patrol and ended with another unit heading out for night surveillance of several villages in Baraki Barak, a remote district of strategic Logar Province, located just south of Kabul.
“Just another day, another mission,” several soldiers said as the first patrol prepared for a 10km slog to aid village schools without windows, desks and other basic necessities.
‘EXTREME MAKEOVER’
Troops have blitzed the area with humanitarian aid under an innovative “extreme makeover” concept that has had General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, and civilian officials, helicoptering in to see how the model could be applied elsewhere in the country.
As the humanitarian mission was under way, three cooks on the Joint Combat Operations Post scurried to prepare the meal. Putting a turkey on a soldier’s Thanksgiving table isn’t always easy in Afghanistan.
To enjoy the fresh meal, soldiers a month ago bought six turkeys at US$20 apiece from local farmers, built a special pen under one of the guard towers and fed them cornbread, crackers and even chicken. The unit’s mechanics converted a 208 liter drum into a smoker and Staff Sergeant Charles Hough of Dexter, New York, who is otherwise charged with the unit’s mortars, volunteered to supervise deep frying three of the celebratory birds.
LIVING CONDITIONS
The soldiers live in tents or crude wooden huts, ringed by a 3.6m earthen defensive wall topped by barbed wire.
The “dining hall” is a square wooden structure with bare walls except for paper cutouts of two turkey heads and a sprinkling of maple leaves. The kitchen, a tiny tent on a trailer, is not for a chef who is feint of heart.
Most of the US soldiers at Baraki Barak won’t be getting back to their home base of Fort Drum, New York, until after Christmas.
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