Christmas Dinner

The Dining Facility put out another fancy spread for us today. Roast beef, turkey, ham, traditional fixin's, and a ton of different desserts. I only ate the one big meal today - turkey, ham, mac-n-cheese, green bean casserole, mashed potatos, dressing, cranberry sauce, and a dinner roll. I finished with a helping of peach cobbler topped with whipped cream.  All of it was washed down with a Coke Zero.

Standing in the new addition to the DFAC.

Barry getting ready to chow down. I am lucky to have him working with me. An old retired ammo CW3, he keeps me sane when things get stressful.

Sitting with Don. He is a contractor out of Fort Carson who works in J-4 for DA G-8. He's a great conversationalist from Pennsylvania. Again, I am lucky to work with a guy like him. His knowledge, stories and demeanor help the time go by. 

At the back of the room there were several stacks of packages that americans sent over for soldiers. They contained mostly comfort items - snacks, hygiene related goods, etc. Note that the first pictures here show only locals and third country nationals rifling through the stuff.

From this angle I was able to get a shot of some american soldiers having a crack at getting some of the goodies. Note in the left foreground some of the desserts - this was only a small part of what was offered.

Anyway, I wanted to make a comment about the comfort items sent from the states. The american people are very generous. They send all kinds of stuff, and lots of it, as you can see above. I , typicaly, never take anything as I believe these things are for the soldiers. I just hope that most of the packages sent into Theater make it to the FOBs and COPs where they are really needed.

As I mentioned above, you can see what looks like a disproportionate amount of "non" americans helping themselves. Some would say it is good "COIN" for them to take the stuff. We always have locals and TCNs, to include coalition forces, come by to enjoy our bounty. I'll leave the COIN discussion for the experts who are better qualified to address this -  as it should be. I think that, from a social perspective, that in this case, our generosity is being wasted. Certainly the american people's wishes are not being met.

Maybe this is better discussed in a different post at a different time.

Merry Christmas.