TruckAll Rhymes With FuckAll

I’ve been here a little more than two weeks, and I’m already forgetting what day it is. Weekends come and go. Hours run together, and the breaks for meals are the only things I really use to disseminate time of day.

If it’s breakfast time we walk or ride in our funny little TruckAll, a 4 door bus like vehicle with a truck bed in the back. Its tiny little 200cc engine struggles to carry 4 or 5 or even 6 passengers stuffed like a Mexican family inside as it bounces uncomfortably down the dusty dirt roads around post. When driving in the gravel parking lots and materials yards it spins out and get stuck. When carrying a load in the back the body bottoms out on the frame.

At any of the numerous Dining Facilities (DFAC) around post a pretty standard assortment of breakfast dishes are served: pancakes, sausage, American and European bacon, biscuits, gravy, fruits and cereals, omelets and coffee. A strange amalgamation of people are coming and going while stacking blue trays and paper plates high with food. Numerous camouflage patterns indicating military personnel from all over the world mix with the civilian bearded men in baseball caps and women with long hair falling over their shoulders all dressed in earth tone t-shirts and khakis.

I’m not used to eating such big breakfast’s and in within the first week I realized that I would fatten up like Christmas goose if I didn’t’ mellow the hell out on my food consumption. During my introductory period on post I stuffed my belly every morning enjoying each meal as if it might be my last. I feared that at any moment I could be called up to move over night to another Forward Operating Base (FOB) clear out in the middle of some Afghan mountain range. Once there I’d have far fewer options for hot chow. So I savored every meal.

I had to quit eating like that. I could hear myself getting fatter, as new layers of pudge formed around my belly. It’s generally pretty hard for me to eat decently as I’m picky as hell. Since I was a child I’ve worked hard to avoid eating anything that swims or flies. That’s weird. I know, but I don’t really give a shit. We’ve all got our hang ups. In situations like this I have far fewer choices, and I know I’ll have make concessions eventually. While in Iraq I had to start eating chicken or else the chance of malnutrition was a very real threat. We were eating on the cheap over there, and tank tread and Javelin missiles are expensive. Days on days of Chicken Nuggets, Chicken Tetrazinni, Chicken Fajita, Chicken with Noodles, Chicken Dumplings, or Chicken with Salsa. Each meal was like a roulette wheel of mouth drying culinary hatred. I was miserable.

While most DFACs are pretty standard buildings with identical menus the one located in the military tent camp compound known as “South Park” caters to only American soldiers and civilians. It spins out a fairly nicer assortment of food and snacks. Multiple lines of dinner entrées and short line orders, a sandwich meat bar, dessert trays, ice cream freezers,, and racks stuffed with potatoes chip bags and cliff bars. This chow tent is generally preferred by most Americans, even if you have to sit at picnic benches inside tents.

I haven’t eaten 3 squares a day in years, and I’m not sure what I think of it. A lot of times I find myself going to eat even though I’m not really hungry because there are set times in which you can eat so if I don’t get it now I may not get it all. I think that sucks.