Skip to main content

Camels and Goats

I talked to Kerry one day recently and he had been fielding dozens of phone calls from all around the world. Apparently an officer at another base in Afghanistan had been trying to impress his family with a hardship story and he sent an email that his unit was out of food and that they were reduced to eating camels and goats.

The soldier's father-in-law, upon receiving this email, was incensed that the Army wasn't feeding the soldiers properly and contacted his senator. This in turn, led to a congressional inquiry which led to Kerry getting dozens of phone calls. Kerry is a logistician and his job involves getting all supplies (beans and bullets) to each base and making sure there is enough for everyone.

Kerry was not particularly happy about this.

"I talk to the soldiers at that base every day and their main complaint is that they are out of a certain flavor of ice cream, not that they are eating camels and goats!"

I'd love to know if they told the father-in-law that his son-in-law is an idiot and that there was no validity to his claim. Or do they just say, "We've investigated the claim and feel that the situation is resolved satisfactorily"?

I hope they tell him the guy's an idiot.

This reminded me of a poem my kids heard somewhere along the way:

Mary had a little lamb
You've heard this tale before.
But did you know she passed her plate
And had a little more?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Luau, Luau

This week we attended our first luau! We went to the luau at the Hale Koa hotel. The grounds were just incredible. There were men playing soft Hawaiian music, the plants and flowers were glorious. There were people in native costumes making headbands out of palm fronds, chopping up fresh coconut for us to taste, handing out flowers for us to put behind our ears and handing out seashell leis to each guest. It was very relaxed and peaceful. This was a Samoan man who kept us entertained during the cocktail hour. He was very funny! Check out those tattoos. He said the tattoos were part of a rite of passage that he had to go through. He said it took fourteen days to complete the tattoo and, yes, it hurt. And yes, everything was tattooed. He demonstrated how to climb a coconut tree using only a bandanna around his feet. They picked people out of the audience and gave them a quick hula lesson. Katie was thrilled to be one of the people chosen and of course it irritated Ben because he thi...