Soy Sauce Packets & Epiphanies: Pvt. Ron Harrison...

i got the unfortunate news today that someone that i went to high school with was killed in iraq. i've had this weird pit in the bottom of my stomach, ever since hearing the news.

i remember when my good friend scott went away to marine boot camp, and having the strange and uncomfortable feeling that something could happen to him; and wondering if i could remember the date of the last time i had seen him, or the last thing that i had said to him. luckily, he was never deployed (knock on wood), and is still at home, safe and sound. or the time that i reconnected with another friend from high school, also named ron, that was deployed in iraq for some time. i reconnected with him on myspace, and prior to that couldn't remember the last time that i had seen or heard from him, since we had won the county little league championships so many years before.

tonight's news was no easier than hearing that my best friend had died in the war; and i only knew ron in passing in high school. we were never close friends, merely acquaintances. yet the feeling has been so overwhelming today. i suppose that i am lucky that in a war that has lasted as long as this, and with number of casualties, that this is the first time i've had this terrible feeling.

my thoughts and prayers go out to ron and his family. THANK YOU for your service to our country and for keeping us free.

Morris County soldier dies in Iraq

"A soldier from Morris County on his first deployment to Iraq has died of a non-combat injury, according to the Department of Defense.
Pvt. Ronald R. Harrison, 25, of Morris Plains, died Monday at Forward Operating Base Falcon near Baghdad.

Harrison was a Bradley fighting vehicle mechanic assigned to the 703rd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga., said Kevin Larson, a Fort Stewart spokesperson.

Harrison was sent to Iraq in January 2007 on a 15-month deployment, Larson said. Harrison joined the Army in September 2005.

The Defense Department said the incident is under investigation and no further details were released.

Raised in West Milford, he attended Boonton High School.

Harrison had recently married. His wife, Kagen, lives with her son, Max, in Montgomery, Texas, Rowland said. He enlisted in the Army in April 2006 after joining the New Jersey Army National Guard in December 2003.

In addition to his wife, Harrison is survived by his parents Richard and Beverly Harrison of Mount Olive; sister and brother-in-law Heather and David Stiles of Washington, Warren County."

by Leslie Kwoh and Kristin Alloway/The Star-Ledger

the story behind ssp&e:

so i'm not sure if you're anything like me, but being the 'off the cuff cuisine' chef that i am, i try not to let anything go to waste. you know, when you bring home some bk or mickey d's, and after consuming your poor excuse for food, have ketchup packets or sauce shots left over that you throw in the door and forget about. same goes for chinese food, and you know they always give you enough sauce to put out a fire at the pentagon with your order. you throw them in your refrigerator door and forget about them. then one day you're trying to impress some last minute guests that have decided to stay at your place for dinner and all you have in your 'gourmet' kitchen are some ramen noodles, frozen veggies and some leftover grilled chicken from last weekend's cookout. the makings of a superb, on-the-fly stirfry. but wait, OH SHIT!, how are you going to make a sauce for your stirfry with no sauce? you look in the fridge and all you see is a bottle of ketchup, french's mustard (i use the term mustard loosely when describing french's), and a jar of pickle juice. oh no, what to do, what to do. then you bust open the butter holder, that invariably has never seen a stick of butter in it's life, and VOILA! soy sauce, duck sauce, hot mustard! packets, but instant chinkychow sauce nonetheless! each one of those packets, collected over time, came from a meal, inevitably eaten over conversation, an argument or during a lone lunch of self-reflection, came from a time and place in the past. as are our lessons learned. we learn through the years how to cope, how to inspire, how to teach, and how to live. we don't always remember those lessons, as we throw condiment packets in the fridge we throw life-lessons into the back of our heads, until one day we find ourself in a situation where it becomes relevant and we pull them from the back of our minds as to not waste the advice and lessons of the past. the moral of this story, and the linking of it to my blog- our life experiences are our 'soy sauce packets,' our hidden links to our experiences of our past...

e·piph·a·ny - noun - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. [www.dictionary.com]

the epiphanies that we experience in life, questions or situations that we find ourselves in, and don't know how to resolve, can most often be solved my raking our brains in search of a 'soy sauce packet.' an answer to a question. a solution to a problem. and so this, this blog, is simply an ever-expanding culmination of soy sauce packets in my butter box, and the epiphanies that have helped to make room for more butter in my fridge...

1 comments:

Anonymous, 9:35 AM: I heard about this through an old high school friend and I also had that stomach feeling for awhile. Still do, Ron was in my class and I'm here to tell you that he was one of the nicest, funniest guys I've ever had the pleasure in knowing. We called him 'Big Ron' partly because everyone looked up to him, he was the best and my heart goes out to his family and close friends.

Soy Sauce Packets & Epiphanies

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Pvt. Ron Harrison...

Friday, April 25, 2008

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