Farewell Burger King and Good Riddance

“If we do not lay ourselves at the service of mankind whom should we serve?” – John Adams

Throughout multiple deployments I have never been a person to frequent the food courts found on every FOB. Normally, they are located at the PX and range in variety from Pizza Hut to Subway. Green Beans Coffee is another fixture. Now that base closure is the name of the game, these food courts are on the wane. The one at COB Speicher isn’t very large, consisting of a Burger King, Subway and Green Beans. A sad day came for many a Joe in the past week. The Burger King closed and the trailer facility that housed it is being removed. Soon the other two will follow. It really makes no difference to me. The DFAC serves massive quantities of quality chow. I never really understood why anyone would pay money at the food court when they have so many options for free at the mess hall. Oh well, it is becoming a moot point. As the FOBs get closer to their end the food courts are disappearing. Joes have no choice now but the DFAC.

Food court closures are just a sideshow to the real events ongoing here. Oblivious to such events, and ignoring the increasingly bare shelves of the PX, we drive on in pursuit of our mission. Along the way we seize every moment we can to recognize our amazing Soldiers. There are two times we have an opportunity to recognize Soldiers – awards and promotion. We’ve had several of both. In the past two weeks I’ve had both Officer and Enlisted promotions within the Battalion. This has afforded us the opportunity to give special recognition to various members of our unit for their hard work, excellence of performance, and professional progression of their careers. What makes this all the more special is that we are able to take time out from our pursuit of mission success in Iraq to pay homage to our own. What’s best is that we have many more Soldiers to recognize in the coming months. Food courts may be soon a thing of the past here in Iraq but what isn’t is the incredible determination and drive of our Soldiers. They’ll just all be fueled by the DFAC from now on.