European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 9, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse May 2007 stars and stripes Mideast edition opinion Page 13 an Ordinary Guy in an extraordinary office dlr Ivl a1 git a tvflt1 by Marsha Mercer Media general news service Washington a week after president Kennedy was assassinated in november Jackie Kennedy wanted to be sure her husband was remembered As a the grieving just asked author Theodore White to write about Juks love of the Broadway musical about King Arthur and his knights of the round they played one song Over and Over on their old Victrola dont let it be that once there was a for one briefing shining that was known As Cam Whites essay in life Maga which Jackie Kennedy carefully edit set the Camel Tjohn Kennedy myth in perpetual now another presidential Nancy frail at has taken care to make sure americans remember her husband through his Majestic funeral in his presidential foundation and museum and a seemingly endless Stream of and she need not reagans presence seems to grow Only stronger As the years although he left the White House in 1989 and spent a decade in silent seclusion after he announced he had Althe imers disease in Ronald Reagan looms Over american his name is on schools and Public buildings across the his Library in Simi was a fit Ting site for last weeks Republican presiden tial Republican candidates always claim to be reagans they Only wish they could connect with people the Way he in a nation with a Short attention its easy to forget reagans Long but presi Dent Bush has seemed with his Western style and sunny Demeanour More a son of re the 40th than of his the former Reagan speechwriter Peggy noon an nailed reagans political influence when she wrote about the current president in the new Bush would not be Here if it had not been for the old and George Bush was president Only because re Agan picked him As his running hate George Bush blame reagans influence stretches beyond his last Senate candidate Jim ran a to and touting president reagans Praise of webbs service As Navy Nancy Reagan asked the Campaign to pull the As she has with other political reagans unlike other former presi is itself a the Reagan legacy spearheaded by Graver an architect of the conservative is pushing to have a significant landmark in every state and in counties named for the project counts Success in 26 although significant is a relative theres Reagan National Airport outside Washington but also Ronald Reagan Road i a subdivision in reagans writings have surprised people who had no idea he was so already published Are More than a thousand most and transcripts of his radio coming this month is the Reagan Dia As Reagan jotted his thoughts about the Days events with his Jumpt 1we pets comm 6oo0se9s his Marist Vale Fountain pen in a Maroon leather bound Jour Between 1981 and he filled five 8v2byllinch excerpts were published in the june vanity fair and at he seems an Ordinary Guy in the most extraordinary office i the on the same he writes about a Paki Stani plane with american passengers hijacked in Kabul and about his wedding anniversary 29 years of More happiness than any Man could rightly he worries about armageddon in the mid dle East horror of that White House Ushers served Prince Charles a cup of Tea with the Tea the Prince set it Down without a telling the i didst know what to do with but even the Oval office Doest make mondays any i hate he wrote on May one of those Days with briefings interviews overlapping to where i even read a memo my desk was full of he sounds More like Dilbert than King but that nobody Calls him an amiable dunce Hes the great Marsha Mercer is Media generals Washington Bureau res pass ultimate far afield test in los Angeles by Joel Stein los Angeles times i wanted to know just How much our troops Are not having nearly enough courage to or even be embedded As a i briefly considered taking one of those Boot Camp work put but it turns out they meet 6 in the so i decided to eat army and not just regular me shall i wanted to try what soldiers have when there stuck out in the Field ready to eat the plastic bags with com plete dinners that come with self contained heating have a shelf life of three can withstand temperatures of 120 de Grees and Are unharmed when dropped out of a helicopter at 100 this is the bad dest food in the the Are menus were developed by Ger Ald the defense departments com Bat feeding director at the Soldier systems Center in for he has to create a meal with times the recommended daily allowance of and get it to survive the same Type of massive pressure cooker used for canned eggs and Al Dente pasta dont do so which you know from the fact that you tend not to buy cans of eggs or Al Dente the department of defense completely re thought res in 1991 because soldiers were calling them meals rejected by ethic so it developed totally new menus based on soldiers now Darsch brags that soldiers Call his creations meals respected by although not everyone feels that Way about the Low fiber Cre at a Uso show in Iraq in Al Franken said that he had had his fifth Are on the trip and none of them had an exit i got Darsch to Send me All 24 varieties and invited friends Over for a As you would expect from an Are party in Holly one of my Singer Colleen Vitamin c had eaten an Are when she appeared on a reality Lucki another photojournalist David had them in which was key be cause the instructions were after opening the Brown plastic bag Dar sch is working on a the Ike style directions told us we should put a Little bit of water in the heating place it next to the flexible Metal Container holding our main course and lean them both against a round object that the draw ing labelled As a Rock or for some confounded All of none of my it is smart enough to be in the but after Butow showed us How to do we were pretty impressed with the tech nolo the heating unit emits a lot of Hydrogen and Doest smell but creating a whole lot of heat just by adding water is pretty even More fun was All the stuff in our bags matches that work when a moist Salty powdered very soft toilet paper and even tiny Tabasco i could not imag Ine that the people who packed such a Nice bag also run Walter although All the main courses basically looked like airline food and were too Salty and a Little metallic tasting there was a shocking Range in the less meat there the better they the cheese Tortellini was As Good As most Frozen As were the Chili and Macaroni and the Chicken with the cajun Rice and sausage was so Jill Soloway a writer who i imagine often sends things Back at restaurants said she Send it Back at a but the Chicken which had the most unconvincing Grill Marks id Ever tasted like Chicken Darsch said his Field tests showed the same results As my not the part about How people tend to stay Long after the Host wants them to but the food and Darsch is doing his Best to rectify by Hes mixing that Nasty along with the Chicken the meatloaf and the Clam even if our country cant learn from past military at least we can learn from our culinary Joel Stein is a times prickly City by Scott Stantis would you go
