August 01, 2006
War is Hell – we all know that axiom. For those men and women serving in Iraq, many of
whom are National Guard members uprooted from their daily lives, food is an
important connection to home. They miss
the simplest of things – fresh warm biscuits, a slice of New York pizza, a steak on the grill.
When Vets come home, they can’t wait to get their hands on
the things they have always loved most.
Here is a sample:
Overheard on the train to Grand Central
A tattooed guy, skinny and smelling of need and hurt, warms
up to a young woman from Brooklyn. He tells
her that he, too, is obsessed with word puzzles.They are, he says, “the only way I keep from
losing his mind in Iraq.”
He is home on leave, trying to spend some time with his
family in the Bronx before getting shipped off
again, to finish out his tour of duty.He
is on his way to Katz’ Deli for a giant Reuben.
“I got another eight months in the belly of the beast,” he
says.
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“Wow,” she replies. “How long have you been there?”
“Oh, this isn’t my first tour,” he explains. “I was in the
First Gulf War.”
It hadn’t been his idea, but he was in the Marines at the
time, well-trained by the time Kuwait
had been invaded.
“It’s not like I mind being a Marine, but I seriously wanted
out after the First Gulf War.”
He explains that he had been sent to Afghanistan,
where he was wounded.He shows her the
shrapnel and the medical slices and stitches.His friends died there, alone in a remote region of the earth.It was, he said, not the kind of combat he
had trained for, not really.
“Why can’t you get out?” she asks.
“There aren’t enough people signing up to replace the rest,”
he replies. “Besides, what else am I good for at this point?”
He goes on to tell her that he joined the Marines because
when he was seventeen he got into a few entanglements with the law, and his
choice was prison or the military.
“I wasn’t all that bad of a kid, when I look back at it now,”
he says. “But the judge sure had made me
feel bad.
“What did you do?” she asks.
“Just some stupid stuff,” he replies. “Nothing like what
kids do now. But I guess at the time it
was something.Anyway, I don’t regret
being a Marine.
Her cell phone rings and she mumbles something about
arriving late but she’s on her way.
“I’m proud to be a marine,” he says when she hangs up the
phone, “but I don’t like this war.It’s
all about oil, and anyone who tells you different is lying. But for me, as a
soldier, what I don’t like, is that there is no way to know who the enemy
is.I prefer a battle where armies wear
uniforms, you know? This war isn’t fair play.
I don’t like being a sitting duck.”
Among his tattoos are crosses and swords and the Yankees
logo, weathered now on his bronze and freckled skin. He is a lonely man who
needs to talk, and she is kind and listens. She tells him that her father is
Persian – he knows only the word Iranian – and the talk switches to the history
of the Middle East. They both agree that the region is complex
and difficult to understand, and for that reason Americans don’t get it. But everyone wants oil.
“Oil is the scourge of the Middle East
,” she says. “It has made only a few people there rich.And it has ruined the landscape.”
Oil was no blessing, they agree, except for the companies
now interested in getting their hands on it.
He tries to explain to her how it feels being back home, in New York, among the
green trees and the delis and the people who move around as if they are in a
movie played to the wrong soundtrack and at the wrong speed.
“I sure miss the New
York delis when I’m over there,” he says. “I dream of
Pastrami on rye and I swear it is so real I wake up tasting it.”
She tells him that she loves the Korean buffets on 32nd Street
– he shakes his head at the thought of raw fish and seaweed. They laugh, then
agree that New York
pizza by the slice is something so hard to live without.
“The rest of the world just doesn’t get the importance of
The Slice,” she says.
The train pulls into the station.
“Good luck,” she says as he stands up.
“Yeah, thanks,” he replies.“My number ain’t come up yet.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I hope everything turns out well.”
“I’m getting me a sandwich,” he says. “I’m gonna eat it
slow.”
Tags:
comfort food, Iraq, Katz Deli, pizza by the slice, War is Hell
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Posted on 8/1/2006
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