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" So the other day, news broke that many of the fast-food joints serving troops in Iraq are slated to close this summer due to continued troop withdrawals. Bummer! (Not the withdrawal part.) Whether the likes of Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, and T.G.I. Fridays belong in war zones in the first place has long been a point of contention: depending on whom you ask, they&amp;#039;re either a nice amenity for our hard-fighting troops, or a resource-draining luxury for lily-livered patsies. Agree to disagree. All of which got me to thinking about what, exactly, the food scene \u2014 if you can even call it that \u2014 looks like when you&amp;#039;re thousands of miles from home in the middle of a hostile desert (and no, I&amp;#039;m not talking about Vegas). Herein, some context-free reflections on wartime grub from two bona fide fighting men, Captain Lex and Captain Robin of the British Armed Forces. Both have sampled more than their fair share of British and American chow during tours in Afghanistan. Take it away, fellas.... The food in the canteen at the British base, Camp Bastion, is amazingly good. Lots of fresh vegetables and always three or four hot meal options. They do a very good cheesecake and chocolate fudge cake, too. At the American base in Kandahar, mess halls have many more extras. You can get muffins, energy bars, potato chips, and cans of soda, and the American food offerings are much more oriented around the brands and food products that you see at home. Plus, they have a surf and turf night every now and then. They had fresh strawberries once, which I was quite astounded by. Normally people go for fast food once a week or so, just to get a taste of home. The canteen is free, but on the big bases there are fast-food options that you can pay for. When I was at Camp Bastion there was just a Pizza Hut but at Kandahar there were loads of options, like a Tim Horton&amp;#039;s donut shop, a Green Beans coffee shop, and a Burger King. There was always quite a long queue at the fast-food places \u2014 it could take you an hour to get your order. The quality of the fast food is about the same as what you would get at home. You wouldn&amp;#039;t really know that you&amp;#039;re at a Pizza Hut in Afghanistan instead of Sussex or Ohio.  I don&amp;#039;t think that fast food detracts from military effectiveness. It boosts morale, which is actually good for military effectiveness. Certainly for the Americans who do tours of a year or more (compared to shorter British tours), it&amp;#039;s definitely a treat to be able to do something normal, that you might do at home, every once in a while. I can&amp;#039;t see any detriment to having fast food available. When we were getting ready for what you knew would be a dangerous operation, many of my men would make a point of going to Pizza Hut right before they left. When you think about it, that&amp;#039;s quite significant psychologically. When you&amp;#039;re outside of a major camp, all you have is your daily ration. The UK one consists of a cardboard square box with three &amp;quot;boil in a bag&amp;quot; meals, dessert, a snack, and a brew kit for coffee or tea. When you&amp;#039;re on the ground, and you&amp;#039;re tucked up at night into some foreign Afghan compound, the one piece of morale and nourishment you have for the day is what comes in this silver bag. So what exactly you find when you open it up makes a huge difference in your state of mind.  Whenever we saw American rations we would always try to steal or swap them. They probably have the same number of calories as a British ration, but the American MREs are about three times the size. You gets lots of extras, like you might get proper cookies or crisps. It would almost be kind of exciting, like opening a Christmas stocking. The irony of it is that the people who could do with the morale boost of having fast food are the guys who can&amp;#039;t get to it. If you&amp;#039;re in a tricky position, you&amp;#039;ve got no choice but to cut out the ration packs to a bare minimum and eat them cold. You rely massively on stuff that people send to you. Over Christmas I remember that someone sent a little jar of brandy butter, and I was just eating that on its own. It was a treat because it was nice and it was a little reminder of Christmas. That sort of made me smile. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/interviews/a9964/fast-food-at-war-5761787/>