If you’ve been hearing a low rumble or seeing a faint column of smoke off in the distance, perhaps traveling in the direction of Afghanistan, be alarmed.
It’s The Lame Train, and the next two stops are Bagram and Kandahar Air Bases. This thumbs-up crushing, awesomeness stifling locomotive was last seen stationed at our beloved university in the form of a certain game-that-must-not-be-named, as well as under the guise of a particular letter’s author.
Said author made it very clear to everyone he is a patron of The New Yorker, and he wasn’t pulling any punches last week in asserting his disappointment with some columnists’ lack of seriousness, yours truly included. Well, point awarded to Culture Queen, because the first thing readers need on a Monday morning is a strong cup of cerebral pace-putting to start the week off right.
Apparently, it’s a real inconvenience if the Opinions section isn’t Gladwelling it up on a daily basis. Long story short: when it comes to the Opinions section, we’re giving and you’re taking.
But I digress.
To many a soldier’s dismay, stationing of The Lame Train was official when it was recently announced that a food or recreation area in Kandahar dubbed “The Boardwalk” and its slightly smaller cousin in Bagram, which I’m assuming is dubbed “Lil’ B,” will be losing many of their anchor eating establishments, notably Burger King, Pizza Hut and TGI Friday’s, among several others. I was initially caught off guard by the fact that Burger King was even there in the first place: It’s an army of one; you can’t have it your way. Even still, I wasn’t fully aware of how entrenched these microcosms of gastro-Americana were. If I’d known I could be in the asscrack of the world and still be able to get my Orange-Julius fix, I’d have given at least three more seconds of consideration toward suiting up before deciding to retreat to Gainesville.
It seems this news shouldn’t have come as terribly surprising, given that the conductor of this, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, had given alcohol the boot from Kabul headquarters back in 2008. I’m sure some troops saw this most recent ban on the horizon and, preparing for the inevitable, commenced filling themselves with stuffed crust personal pans in the mean time. The explanatory statement that’s been making its rounds in the press clearly describes Afghanistan as “a war zone — not an amusement park.”
I find decisions like this, and specifically this one’s rationale, to be unnecessarily condescending, as soldiers need only to step outside the entrances of those momentary reminders of what they’re defending (and now completely sacrificing, as well) to realize they’re in “the suck.” But why stop at junk food? Why not ban the USO, photos and family contact altogether? After all, it’s a war zone — not a rock concert or family reunion. At least the level of absurdity in that case would be, well, absurd in and of itself, thus making the crazy kind of sense that reeks distinctly of our soldiers being short-changed, courtesy of The Lame Train.
If those further suggestions don’t sit well with you, and I can only guess why they wouldn’t, why not support our troops the new fashioned way, with a junk food boycott? If properly executed, once Yum! Brands and friends see their revenue streams in jeopardy, they’ll waste no time in flexing their corporate muscle (read: dollars) in Washington’s direction with the aim of getting their Afghan franchises up and running again. One can only dream, though, because despite the fact that military support is endemic in this country, I doubt it’s enough to overcome the majority of Americans’ inability to fit into anything under a size 40.
