BARAKI-BARAK, Afghanistan — As daylight faded and the winter cold set in, soldiers huddled inside a crude wooden hut to tuck into Thanksgiving turkeys the unit itself had fattened and to give thanks for having survived a year of combat in Afghanistan.
“They become your family and being able to eat together like this, to break bread together is a highlight,” said 1st Sgt. Gonzalo Lassally of soldiers from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron sitting down to the traditional turkey plus ham basted in brown sugar and honey, five varieties of pies and nonalcoholic beer. A stack of local flatbread added an Afghan touch.
A much-scaled-down version of the feast was helicoptered to a handful of soldiers in an observation post perched on a 6,900-foot spur.
“We’re thankful for all still being here. We’ve been lucky, on the lower spectrum when it comes to casualties,” said Lassally, a father of three from Deltona, Fla., who has spent four Thanksgivings, three Christmases and “quite a few birthdays” away from home.
The American holiday began with a 25-man patrol and ended with another unit heading out for night surveillance of several villages in this remote district of strategic Logar province, just south of Kabul.
“We’re with our family, just like we would be at Thanksgiving back home,” said Staff Sgt. Ben McKinnon, of New Haven, Conn., nodding toward the soldiers around him who have daily shared hardship, suffering and some elation over the past year.
Troops have blitzed the area with humanitarian aid under an innovative “extreme makeover” concept that has had Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and civilian officials helicoptering in to see how the model could be applied elsewhere in the country.
As the humanitarian mission was underway, three cooks on the Joint Combat Operations Post scurried to prepare the meal.
Spec. Seth Breesawitz, of Springfield, Mo., who supervises two other army cooks on the outpost, said that to feed some 150 soldiers the local turkeys were supplemented with four prebaked and seasoned ones airlifted from the U.S. and then trucked to Baraki-Barak.
