No, this isn’t the same turkey. But it strongly resembles it.

You know how to spot a bullshit story, right? It starts like this—”Well, there I was…”

This Thanksgiving Day tale begins like that. Except that it really happened, Thanksgiving Day, 2011, Camp Kilaguy, Baghlan Province, Afghanistan.

Some background. I think I’d just been promoted, and I was hurting. Most of the team was. Hacking, smoking too much, deadened. It’d been busy for a while, and we just came off a major, stupid thing out in some dive. Duststorms, cold weather, gray skies. A bright spot was that the new victims showed up, replacements from the States. We began the “right-seat ride” process, or orienting the FNGs to the area of operations.

I didn’t expect much, that Thanksgiving. But a crusty-ass NCO rode to the rescue. Sort of.

This guy, I’ll call him Toad, was a leather-faced thief and the author of a thousand tall tales. He was a veteran of the First Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Maybe other shit, I don’t know. But he had been around. Typical Air-borne 82nd dude, he was fond of mocking guys with a standard airborne badge, “Five-jump chump motherfucker. Cherry,” as he flicked his cigarette.

Toad was a gifted scrounger, which is the polite Army way of saying “thief.” On one occasion, I witnessed a spectacular act. Me and the Colonel were out on a thing, not sure how long. When we returned, we noticed a group of Joes or whoever cavorting in a hidden corner of the motor pool. What the hell was this, we wondered. The Colonel and me, still dusty and gross from the road and the field, wandered over.

There was a fucking swimming pool in the motor pool.

Army motor pools are not intended for literal pools, and to this day I have no idea where the pool came from. The Colonel said nothing, but I watched as his lips formed that dangerous grim line. We walked away, no comment made, and I went to clean my weapons like usual. The Colonel sought our Team Sergeant, the redoubtable Mike.

The pool disappeared like magic. No trace remained. I guess it was fun while it lasted, though.

That Thanksgiving, I didn’t care about anything other than going home, preferably not in a box. But Toad, the crafty, long-service NCO, had a plan to improve our day.

You see, Toad, while at times the epitome of a “leadership challenge,” could back up his bullshit, mostly. No one was better at taking care of soldiers, and he always took the mission seriously, even if nothing else—especially not petty things like Army regulations or the origin of stuff we needed, or just wanted.

Toad knew what we needed that day, and he delivered.

He appeared with a turkey, origin unknown. He had a plan to cook it using scarce, dubious and unsafe resources. You see, in Afghanistan, wood is precious. This is why for day-to-day cooking, people generally used dried sheep shit patties; this was why roadside kebab always had a tang. His plan was to use trash and ammo dunnage for cooking—the stuff that keeps munitions from rubbing together or being exposed to hard shocks; not exactly Kingsford charcoal, but it’s what Toad could get.

Toad executed. I’m not sure what I did that day, but I wasn’t involved with the dubious turkey prep. When not in the field, I had administrative duties or leadership BS. It was nonstop. A good guess would be briefings, training, or written order generation. Maybe weapons or vehicle maintenance, I don’t know anymore. However, at sunset, all of us came together in the supply shack (probably being used these days by the Taliban as a goat shed or something) to eat Toad’s spread; a well-done turkey with a chemical trash-fire tang, and T rat or purloined fixin’s, prepared as well as possible.

It was crowded, I remember. All twelve of us, maybe some replacements, I dunno, and definitely our adopted Air Force guys, the JTACs, or forward air controllers. Those guys! Nicknamed Fucks and Butter, they had gone full Colonel Kurtz and had bushy beards. However, they were real pros in the field, and had delivered for us. They belonged, and we awarded them the Army Combat Action Badge.

Even though one time I pee’d on Butter’s head. But that’s another story.

It was the best Thanksgiving turkey ever. Even though it tasted of burned toys, it was great.

A couple of weeks later, I boarded my freedom bird, never to see the Box again.

Happy Thanksgiving, readers. For all of this, I am grateful.

-Jason