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I do have to say, in every service I have found real warriors. Sometimes in amazing places. One of the most outstanding things, when my guys had been in the field on MREs for months, I went to some Army Reserve cooks and told them the story.

"We can't give you much," they said. I was just hoping for a case of fresh fruit or something. Then they threw open the back of the refrigerator truck they kept their stuff in and said "get a truck and load it up."

Once the truck was loaded up, one of them said -- "Sarge, what about the steaks?"

The mess sergeant hit his forehead. "Oh yeah, I was saving a case of T-bone steaks for a special occasion. This is it." One of the other cooks complained that he had given us vegetables that they had been planning to put out in the mess hall, the mess sergeant said, "hey, these guys eat here every day. We'll fake it for them."

Now, these guys were a bunch of worn-out, overworked, kinda-ratty-lookin' Army Reserve cooks, but they were good as gold to me and mine.

Then when I got to the airfield, we had to cram all that stuff into a Blackhawk. Tight fit. But when I arrived at the camp, I was the hero -- because of what *they* did.

Some of the real pleasant surprizes I got were from just regular Army or Air Force officers and troops, just overdoing their jobs.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F