Letter to MFT's Soldier Bro-In-Law

Below is the letter to my bro-in-law who happens to be on his second tour in Iraq. I thought I'd share it with the rest of you FCP'ers. Enjoy.

This morning I just received your mailing address from [my sister]. Sometimes I'll be watching those war movies (like "Band of Brothers"), and when mail call comes and a soldier doesn't receive anything I think, "Man, that really sucks..." But don't think of this as some sort of pity mail, either. No sir. I'm glad to communicate what it is I've been up to since Christmas and shoot it over to your Mesopotamia locale. I can veil my mild form of egocentrism as a letter to my brother in law. Neat, eh?

Okay. On with the letter. I'm in my last week of a 2-week notice, and it's getting kind of late. But who gives a shit, because as I already said, I'm in my last week at [work], and what are they going to do if I show up a bit late in the morning? Right, they are going to wish that they were so cunning as to have slept in an extra 1/2 hour on the grounds that they stayed up to write their bro-in-law a letter. I won't tell them I was drinking cold beer the entire time, but sometimes those minor cold beer details just crowd a story. Like I said, on with this damn letter.

I traveled to Mongolia. That's a bit succinct for a one month tour, I know. I made several journal entries though, and I have yet to go back and re-read them. By the end of my month in Mongolia, I was craving an American cheeseburger. I'm going to grill you a great damned cheeseburger upon your return. You're just going to have to accept that. If you have any other soldier buddies who enjoy good cheeseburgers, invite them too. But first check with [my sister/your wife], because I don't know how many I should invite over into your guys' house. Back to me, though: I had Dad drive me to a good American cheeseburger joint just after retrieving me from the Bismarck airport upon my Mongolian return. It was great, but enough about cheeseburgers. Back to Mongolia.

Just next door to my friend's apartment flat in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, lives a couple of U.S. Marines. I think the U.S. has a military interest in Mongolia. George W. Bush was over there some years ago to promote democracy. The Mongolians gave him a horse, or something like that. Mongolian horses have short, stout legs compared to American quarter horses. So if we ever see pictures of G.W.'s Crawford ranch, and we notice an unusually short horse, there's a good chance that it's a Mongol one. I only met one of the U.S. Marines in Mongolia, and his last name was Quarter. Thus, he went by "Quarter." Nice guy, although my friend said he heard two Marines arguing at length with one another a couple days back. They must've worked it out. Whatever.

Mongolia is really f#cking cold in January. Believe me. Even colder than North Dakota, and certainly colder than Winnipeg. Yet the body reached a certain pain plateau from cold, and although it got even colder, the body only allowed for a certain amount of pain. I called it the Cold Pain Threshold. This is merely theory, of course, and since we ducked into warm places [pubs] every couple blocks, it's difficult to say whether the beer was acting as bio-antifreeze, or whether the Cold Pain Threshold was reality. Hold on, I need to grab one more cold beer... ... ...--...

Alright. I really wanted this letter to be so much more. But we just have to work with what we got. I'll get this in the mail, and start composing another ASAP. I'm scheduled to be down in Vegas the first three days of March. More details on that when they unfold. Until then, cold beer and cheeseburgers on me upon your return.

Sincerely,

~mft