The story that follows is based on the actual experiences of Frank Ditorie, a pilot in the Air National Guard’s 103rd Fighter Wing Unit in East Granby.  He fought in the war in Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom for three months until April 29, 2003.  His rank was a major, and he had been flying A 10 Thunderbolts since he enrolled in the Air Force Academy in Tucson, Arizona, after high school.  He was on active duty in the Air Force for nine years until he joined the Air National Guard in 1997.  This past year, he returned to Iraq, a country that he was familiar with because he had been stationed there nearly 12 years earlier.  Mr. Ditorie is a pilot for United Airlines at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, when he is not on active duty for the Air National Guard.  He currently lives in Canton, Connecticut, with his wife Darci and two children, Tyler and Erin.

Food For Thought

It was March 27, 2003.  Frank Ditorie stepped out of the A-10 fighter jet that he had become accustomed to flying since he first enrolled at the Air Force Space in Tucson, Arizona.  Now, Iraq had almost become his second home, a place where he was stationed for the second time as an Air Force pilot.  He remembered having been so far away from home 12 years ago and how much he had missed the exhilaration of devouring a Big Mac after a hard day’s work or chugging down a six-pack with some buddies. 

When he reached his trailer, he took out his wallet from his stack of belongings and opened it to see a picture of his eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter.  His wife’s photograph was right beside theirs.  He started to think of his son’s Little League game and the homerun he could be missing, or his daughter’s ballet recital and the pink tutu he wouldn’t get a chance to admire, except through pictures.  He thought of his wife, lonely for his company, still sleeping uneasy every night anticipating her husband’s return home from war.  Frank’s family meant more to him than anything.  It hurt him in his heart to think of how they must be feeling without him and how his children were coping with the possibility that their father may not come home safely. 

He, however, never doubted his safe return home to his loved ones.  Frank’s training at the Air Force Academy in Tucson, Arizona, had made him an extremely confident pilot.  While in the air, it never crossed his mind that he may not return to his lovely home on Wilder’s Pass.  When he was flying, he never stopped to think about being shot down by an enemy plane.  In the air, there wasn’t any time to be scared or to panic.  His mind focused on steering his airplane, defending himself from enemy planes, or helping desperate soldiers on the ground.

Frank opened the trailer door; he heard the voices of his Guard Squadron muffled by the intense wind of the sandstorm rumbling outside.  The younger pilots, the men without as much experience as Frank and his squadron, were stationed in small, green army tents that flapped wildly in the wind.  Frank could faintly hear them straining to speak to one another over the raging wind blowing the hot desert sand everywhere.  They closed their eyes to keep the miniscule grains from creeping in.  All they could do was sit it out in their tents until the wind died down again. 

Frank closed the trailer door and walked to the main tent.  He glanced at the small computer in the far corner where two men were surfing the net on ESPN.com to check the news updates and the baseball stats for the week.  Frank had received an email the other day from his wife, asking if he had received the care package she had sent.  He hadn’t yet, and guessed the packages had been delayed.  He walked over to the TV and watched two of the younger pilots play the game Halo for Xbox.  The pilots were completely focused on the screen, not even noticing Frank who was standing right beside them.  They moved their thumbs on the analog stick of the enormous controller and tapped the colored buttons as if it was a competition to see who could react faster.  Another said, “Hey Frank, our care packages just arrived.  The mail must have gotten held up for some reason.”

“We got all this food,”  another shouted from a corner.  We couldn’t eat all this, even if we stayed here for a year.”

Frank looked at his friends whom he had been flying with for over ten years, and then at stacks and stacks of brown paper packages all addressed to the men.  Home-baked chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, pretzels, and Frank’s daughter’s Girl Scout cookies.  Frank laughed as his eyes met the pile of Girl Scout cookies of every kind stacked nearly five feet high.  There was no way they could eat all this junk food. 

Frank sat down and picked up a bag of Oreos, reached in, and grabbed two.  He chewed absent-mindedly, enjoying the sweet delight.  The men dug frantically through the mountain of letters, toiletries, and food to find something addressed to them.  A few of them started to throw the bags of junk food into the tents for the men to snack on later, knowing that more and more food came every day. 

       “All of this food is going to be wasted if we can’t figure out what to do with it all,” said one of the pilots.

       “I know what we can do,” one of the younger pilots said.  “I heard that there is an orphanage right outside the gated barrier.  We can bring them the food.  They would love it!”

This was an ingenious idea.  They weren’t going to eat the food anyway; and instead of letting it go to waste, giving it to the poor children was a great idea.  On the way to the orphanage, Frank felt a sense of pride and love for what he was doing in Iraq.  Frank saw through the truck windshield the young boys and girls who were deprived of homes and parents to love them.  He looked at the poverty they lived in and at the blue bag of Oreos on the top of the food-filled package he was carrying.  All he could do was smile at the small Iraqi children, thinking of his own, and knowing that it was a memory he would keep in his heart forever.