Alaska to Iraq : Southern Cooking

Southern Cooking

Posted by mauer

Posted: February 20, 2007 - 1:30 pm

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Feb. 10 — I met Sgt. Johnnie French just after getting off the helicopter here Feb. 5. I didn’t know it yet, but French keeps an ice box filled with caffeine power drinks — all I knew was that he was wired.

We dropped off my bags at billeting and walked to headquarters.

Sgt. Johnnie French.

“I need a Valium the size of an Oreo cookie,” he said. I probably agreed.

Turned out it was a late night on the base and a lot of people didn’t get much sleep — the Super Bowl was the night before, and it didn’t start here till 2:30 a.m. Some people were still unhappy that the Armed Forces Network preempted all the Super Bowl commercials with their regular, never-ending recruitment and informational spots that have all the life and creativity of Soviet state TV.

The job of any noncommissioned officer is to make his boss look good. That’s what French does for Maj. Eric Verzola. Both are in public affairs, so they deal with visiting embeds like me, and they try to get favorable press — sometimes they’d be happy with any press at all — in the Iraqi media.

This is the third tour in the area for French, 28. It’s the first for Verzola, 37, who was teaching at West Point before coming to Fort Richardson in August 2005. French knows how to get seats on helicopters for reporters, how to get permission for embeds and how to otherwise maneuver through the stifling military bureaucracy.

Maj. Eric Verzola.

French is pale, blond and wiry, an Appalachian kid from the tiny town of McClure, Va., not far from the Kentucky border. He joined the Army after pestering National Geographic for an assignment that involved walking the Appalachian Trail. The rejection letter told him he needed years of experience as a journalist. He thought he could get it in the Army.

Verzola grew up south of St. Louis. His father was a doctor from the Philippines. When Verzola goes to the base exchange, he practices his Tagalog with the clerks who run the store. Verzola’s wife and five kids live in Anchorage.

Verzola and French share a large office with papered-over windows with an Iraqi translator they called Shorty and several others away on assignment. It was unusually popular this week. French’s mother sent him a big package from home. Ever have peanut butter balls? How about Oreo cookie balls? Hint: they’re chocolate covered. I don’t know if they’re deep fried or just melted, but at last I found some southern cooking that I understand. Thanks, Mom.

Packages from home, even in a place where the food is pretty good, can be huge morale builders.

Lt. Col. Greg Bell, a battalion commander, said he’s found that troops have no problem dealing with things like Congressional fights over the war or other political issues.

“They’re not politicians, they’re soldiers,” Bell said. “Soldiers understand there’s two sides to every issue.”

But nothing perks up morale like stuff from home — especially when it’s addressed to “Dear Soldier.” So many packages came like that at Christmas that they dribbled in for weeks afterward.

“It does help to have your country behind you,” Bell said. “Getting letters, packages from people we do not know — it’s absolutely breathtaking.”

After French got to Fort Richardson from Fort Bragg, he found an apartment with three other soldiers near Merrill Field n Anchorage. Now they’re just renting a room, a place to keep all their stuff. They’re deployed to Iraq at least through October.

How many peanut butter balls will they go through?

Oh, that Valium line? French got it from the very frantic boss of his last civilian job, a rent-to-own place.

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