Tuesday, March 15 2011
Every so often reality slaps us in the face, making us ever more aware of how good we have it here. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan is a good example. Interspersed with the news headlines are reports from "the front," in this case, Afghanistan, and we're reminded that there are a lot of men and women there who are doing a virtually impossible job under the most difficult conditions. For the most part, they do it with anonymity. But sometimes, as illustrated by the letter below, we get a glimpse of who they are. Thanks to Sergeant Huetson for not only granting Cigar Advisor permission to share his letter, but for showing us (the kudos to Famous Smoke Shop notwithstanding), how something as simple as a good cigar has become a symbol of unity for him and his fellow soldiers.
I have been a Famous Smoke customer for just a short while, but the time I have been with your company I have had nothing but good things to say. I am stationed in the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan and have found it very difficult to get quality cigars out here in a reasonable time until I stumbled upon your website one night in the MWR at our combat out post. There is one story that I would like to share with you from our short time out here.
Cigars are not always for celebrating when it comes to our job. We like to use them as a remembrance and a time to reflect on better days seeing we find little to celebrate when deployed. So me and my squad were sitting on an overwatch position during an operation. During the operation our commander took time out of his schedule to brief me and my platoon leader on what was not a good news story. He told us that our headquarters element had suffered an IED strike the night before, and the victim was a Staff Sergeant that used to be in our battery. We were told that he was out of surgery but he had lost his leg above
the knee. He was lucky. Months prior, in July, his roommate back at Fort Campbell had been killed by an IED strike during an operation. This Staff Sergeant was moved to headquarters to take his best friends place. Both soldiers had been from our unit, and now one is dead and the other wounded. It took a lot for our commander to tell us this and you could tell it was eating him up. Thanks to the service your company provides the Troops stationed overseas we were able to smoke take a moment and smoke.
The photo (above) is our little smoking group while on a break from a patrol in the ARV Afghanistan. From left to right is 1st LT John Dabrowski (Platoon Leader), SPC Given Mazariegos (Team Leader), and me, SSG Peter Huetson (Squad Leader).
Just thought I would let you guys know how appreciative we are of the quality and timely service you provide. Keep up the great job and you will always have my business.
SSG. Peter Alexander Huetson
B 1/320
2nd BCT
101st ABN DIV
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
