Tacos in the Suck

I'm a foodie, I follow food blogs and writers.  This is just one of the best 4 part series I have read as it ties food to military service  Hope you enjoy...

When he'd emailed me that he was coming to Houston for the day, I assumed that it was to visit some of his Texas family he'd left behind after joining the Air Force one day out of the blue during college.


Ryan had been attracted to EOD -- explosives ordnance disposal -- upon enlisting and quickly advanced to Tech Sergeant as he discovered within himself a serious and previously unknown talent for defusing bombs. He'd done four tours since 2002, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He married a lovely German girl in between and finally settled in Florida when he wasn't in some far-flung region with a terp at his side, sweeping for mines in vast deserts.
But the trip to Houston was for the tacos


http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/02/taco_truck_crawl_part_1.php



"Have you considered moving out of EOD?" I asked finally. "I know there are other areas of the Air Force you could go into," I added with a little laugh, hoping he wouldn't be offended by the suggestion that he leave an area which poses clear and constant danger to his life every single day that he's on duty.


"No way," Ryan replied. "If I stick it out another 10 years, I can retire on a full pension. Retired at 42. Can you imagine?"

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/02/they_dont_have_tacos_in_the_su.php

"When we got married," he told me, "I asked her: 'How much of what happens over there do you want me to tell you?'" It suddenly occurred to me that I wouldn't know the answer to that question were I married to a military man myself. But Ryan's wife knew the answer immediately: She wanted to know everything.



http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/02/they_dont_have_tacos_in_the_su_1.php

I listened as he told me about watching as weeping fathers carried their children into makeshift hospitals, limbs absent and blood reeling out of charred wounds. I listened as he told me about fathers who strapped bombs to their children's thin chests and sent them out to fight the battles their cowardly parents could not. I listened as he told me about watching a young girl's leg blown off by a crudely designed IED that he had not seen, was not able to defuse.


http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2012/03/they_dont_have_tacos_in_the_su_2.php#more

Jurena..out