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DEL.ICIO.USYou like, uh, the sauce?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Taji, Iraq — They are called “just-in-case letters.”
Soldiers leave them with their families before they go to war, telling them how much they love them. Some write about where they want to be buried. Some contain wills.
Photo by Louie Favorite/AJC — First Sgt. Bruce Oliver (left) shares a laugh with his son, Sgt. Jerome Register at Camp Taji.
First Sgt. Bruce Oliver prayed, double-checked his life insurance policy and left behind his super-secret barbecue sauce recipe.
The former restaurateur has been making the ketchup-based sauce since 1976. He wrote it down and tucked it away in his dresser at home for his son, Sgt. Jerome Register.
Oliver said he has never revealed all of the roughly 30 ingredients to anyone else. He will only say that it is a mild Georgia-South Carolina-style sauce. He makes it for yearly family reunions and turns batches of it into gifts for friends.
“I just kept adding to it and testing it,” said Oliver, 57, who lives in Reidsville and works as an internal affairs investigator for the state corrections department. “Hell, it hadn’t been written down until I wrote it down in this letter.”
Oliver serves with his son in the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment. The two talked about the sauce as they smoked cigars on the front step of Oliver’s hooch.
Register, 33, said when he returned home on leave in the fall, he fished the recipe out of his father’s dresser and made the sauce on his own for the annual Labor Day weekend family reunion. He brought some back for his father to try in Iraq.
“He did good,” said his father, a Vietnam veteran. “It tasted just like I made it.”
Then Register turned to visitor and joked: “Do you want me to walk around the corner so he can tell you the truth?”
Comments
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By Roxanne
September 30, 2005 08:48 AM | Link to this
THANK YOU for finally giving us something from Camp Taji. My son is there (SPC Chris Clayton) and it’s good to see that in all of this craziness there can still be laughter. Please don’t forget that there are soldiers attached to the 48th that aren’t from Georgia and are spread out all over Iraq.
By lindsey
September 30, 2005 09:53 AM | Link to this
Brian, I pray everyday you will be safe and return home soon! Love ya, Lindsey God bless all of you, be safe!!
By Holly
October 1, 2005 10:04 AM | Link to this
YES THANK YOU FOR REPORTING ON CAMP TAJI MY HUSBAND OF 18 YEARS IS WITH THE 118TH SSG RODERICK SUTTON.HONEY I LOVE YOU MORE AND MORE EACH AND EVERY SECOND AND MINUTE OF THE DAY.GOD PLEASE KEEP EACH AND EVERY SOLDIERS SAFE IN YOUR ARMS.GOD SEND PROTECTION OVER EVERY SOLDIER FIGHTING IN THIS WAR.HONEY USE YOUR ANOINTED OIL SENT FROM OUR CHURCH.BE STRONG EVERYONE OF YOU.WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH HONEY.DONT EAT TO MANY SNACKS I SENT YOU .HUGGS AND KISSES