We Meant Well by Peter Van Buren

washed, you had to get a chit from the Third World guy. The chit required your last name, first name, the last four digits of your social security number, your rank, and your unit name. But instead of writing these things yourself, you needed to tell them to the Third World guy so he could write them. When he came from a place where the language did not have a v or b sound (both came out as w ), Van Buren was a tough one. Vocheszowski probably just threw his dirty clothing away.
    After ninety minutes of respelling your name, it was time for the counting. This served two purposes: to ensure you did not violate the twenty-items rule and to allow the Third Worlder to indicate exactly what clothing was being washed. You pulled out a wad of tangled damp stuff and said “one underwear, two T-shirts” while the guy recorded it. Then for some reason you were allowed to print your own name on the bottom of the chit and sign. Somewhere back in time there must have been an investigation into a missing piece of laundry, because after signing the chit you signed a separate form certifying that what you claimed on the first form about the contents of your laundry was accurate. Each side got a carbon-copy receipt. (They still used carbon paper, perhaps the last vestige of this once common office supply tool. Some really young soldiers had never seen it before.) There could thus never, ever be a disagreement over a lost T-shirt. Nothing could have been more certain.
    And then one day, just when my skull was about to explode from yet again counting out my underwear in front of a stranger, I was handed the “pearl.” You’ll remember the moment in On the Road when Kerouac sums up his purpose in traveling cross-country: somewhere when you least expect it someone will hand you the pearl, that piece of wisdom that you needed without knowing you sought it. For me, it was learning about “bulk,” and a little bit about how the Army worked. There was always another way around something. After spending days of my life on laundry chits, a soldier told me you could say “bulk” and not have to count anything. You signed yet another chit waiving all rights to contest lost items of laundry, now and in perpetuity, but in return you needed only mumble “bulk” and the counting of laundry ceased. That was my happiest day in Iraq.

A Break for Dinner
    Food was the real universal, the FOB’s great unifier and equalizer. We had one place to eat, a cafeteria, the DFAC, or dining facility. Everybody ate the same stuff in the same place, no special deals for VIPs, officers, or FSOs, so this, like the weather, was a neutral topic for conversation. To join in, you had to follow the script: where you were previously had way better food than where you were now. The food in the Air Force was better than the food in the Army, unless you were in the Air Force, in which case the best food was in the Navy (everyone agreed the Marines had it worst). With the exception of the Embassy cafeteria—business class versus economy but it was still airplane food—the food at one FOB was pretty close to identical to the food at any other FOB. The KBR contractors who provided the vittles all bought from the same approved stock list and prepared things the same way. As in any other large-scale industrial operation, the emphasis was on food that was cheap, easy to store, and easy to prepare and that, sadly, would be familiar to most of the people. Many of the soldiers were young kids, and so grilled cheese and corn dogs were comfort food, as thoughts of Mom and TGI Friday’s were closer to their hearts than thoughts of 300-plus cholesterol counts and high blood pressure. The bulk of the enlisted corps could digest Tupperware. The “healthy bar” had turkey wings instead of deep-fried chicken wings, and the steamed broccoli came drowned in bright orange cheese goop. Seasoning meant hot sauce. Every table had bottles of