This meme hit my Inbox this morning. It is a soldier in Iraq growing grass in front of his tent. I cannot verify the accuracy of the rest of the Email that accompanied this image, but scenes like this were not uncommon. When I left for Iraq in 2010, the folks who worked for me gave me a cookie sheet, a pair of scissors, a bag of US topsoil, and a bag of grass seed to take with me. I was living in a shipping container that had been converted to quarters. It was not uncommon for soldiers to grow a cookie sheet of American grass under their hooch to remind themselves of home. It takes a tremendous amount of water for grass to survive through sand storms and blistering heat. I don’t have any personal pictures of this, but the picture above struck a chord for me. Pause a moment between glasses of egg nog to think of our Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen, and Coast Guardsmen far away from home this holiday season for whom a bag of American dirt is a special gift.
