Personal Narrative Essay: The Vietnam War

As I stood there exhausted holding a blank stare with my arms to my sides and the sound of mumbling in the background, I only heard three words of the entire training brief my supervisor gave us, “time for chow!” I immediately snapped back to it and walked in the same direction as my teammates. As I walked, I looked ahead of the group for the best place to get out of the 103-degree hot Texas sun. I seen a tree and a stump that would be great to rest my back on and it had plenty of shade. When I arrived at the stump, I set my rifle down and quickly took off my training gear that felt like an extra body hanging on my shoulders. At the same moment that I felt like I could take a break from the training day and let my guard down, I heard one of

my teammates yell “Taylor catch!” A brown plastic bag hit me on the head then fell to the floor with the label facing down. I looked up at him grinning with my thumb pointed up as a sign of gratitude. As I looked down at the brown bag I became extremely nervous to pick it up. The contents of the bag could mean the difference of a good or bad day. The brown plastic bag I was looking at was a “Meal Ready to Eat” or most commonly known as a MRE. As I turned MRE around all I could think to myself is, not an omelet, anything but an omelet! Bingo! It was a Chicken Fajita meal! Most MRE’s taste like canned dog food, but I knew that chicken based MRE’s always had a pack of candy in them. I reached for my excessively sharp knife and cut the MRE open excited to see what I got. When I started taking each individual packet out of bag, I started to arrange the contents in front of me. The first three packages I took out were the unsurprising Fajita chicken, tortillas, and utensils. The next three items almost sent me into an almost uncontrollable excitement: peanut butter… coco… and the most illusive snack an MRE have to offer; a blue pack of Crispy M&M’s! Getting a MRE with all three of these snacks was like winning the jackpot. These small things may seem like no big deal, but when you are secluded from the outside world for weeks at a time, things like these bring joys that only a military troop would understand. While deployed, you have to make the best of things or you will go mad with depression.
To be fair, MRE’s were not the only thing we ate while in training. We had something called Hot Meals. Hot Meals are precooked meals that are delivered to the training site. Hot Meals were provided to the troops for either breakfast or dinner. Sometimes the meals would be delicious and at other times they left you deeply unsatisfied. I believe that the Hot Meal only taste as good as you imagined it. Normally for breakfast you would get the same thing; powdered eggs, cereal, and fruit. Dinner was usually the exciting meal. It was always different, but almost always made of the same ingredients. One day you would get beef pasta, the next beef lasagna. Sometimes they would advertise Sheppard’s Pie and it would end up being noodles and lasagna shells smashed up into squares with beef pasta sauce on top. On the side you could choose mixed vegetables, salad, or Jell-O. There was one day that something remarkably strange, but very awesome happened for dinner. The Hot Meal was steak and potatoes, with no option of noodles or beef pasta sauce. The meal had such a high impact on me and the other trainees that I can remember it as if it happened yesterday. All 150 trainees sat on on the floor joking, laughing, and seemingly in a mood that would make you think that conflict in Iraq was over. Unfortunately, the conflict in Iraq was not over and we were sent there the following week.
The days I spent in Iraq were very long and at times could be extremely dangerous.

On the bright side, I did not have to endure the same old Hot Meals any longer. We also only had to eat MRE’s if it was the absolutely needed and that was not to common. While deployed, troops are able to eat at what we called a Chow Hall, know to civilians as a Cafeteria. It had every day options such as chicken, beef, and seafood dishes of various types. On top of that, we had free range of soda, snacks, and desserts at absolutely no cost to us. The meals and snacks changed regularly depending on the day and what base I was at. Some Chow Halls had special dinners where they served steak and lobster. The steak was cooked well done and the Lobster was chewy, but I never cared; I was just happy to eat a steak. The Chow Halls would normally be ran down, crowded, and it would be common see bugs and other creatures roaming around inside, but after a 12 hour work day, I felt as if I was eating at a five star restaurant. Even though there were so many choices at the Chow Hall, I started to think about how nice it would be to have a big, juicy, hamburger from a fast-food restaurant. I even made a list of all the places I was going to eat once I made it

home.
After spending 8 months in Iraq, I along with the other 150 troops that deployed with me was relieved from duty in Iraq and finally was going home. Just like me, all 150 troops had a weird obsession with wanting to eat at a fast-food restaurant again. After spending over 12 hours flying from the Middle East back to America, we made it to Dallas International Airport. This was the first time we were able to eat American food in what felt like a lifetime. Most of us tried to hide our excitement, but the emotions showed right thru. We finally made it! The sense of joy was almost too hard to handle. All 150 of us dispersed around the airport looking for the restaurant we wanted. I went off by myself and walked around aimlessly with a shock and awe feeling. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. There were so many choices that I could not make up my mind. I went from restaurant to restaurant looking at the choices. I was overwhelmed by all the choices and started to get flustered. As I started to give up on finding a spot, I heard the same trainee that tossed the MRE to me yell “Taylor!” I looked over and he was sitting with some other troops at a table at TGI Fridays. I went over and sat down with them. I ordered a medium-rare bacon double-cheeseburger with fries. When the food arrived at our table the smell of the bacon on top of two cheesy beef patties was heavenly. I was so excited that I almost lost my hunger. After a moment of taking the burger in, I worked up the nerve to eat it with all its delicious glory. We sat at that table with huge smiles on our faces, laughing, and telling stories of what happened to us during our deployment. Looking back, I can say that even thou training and being deployed did not provide the idea eating arrangements; I always tried to make the best of what was given to me.