Cattlemen provide steak as soldiers prepare to deploy

By STEVE BROWN

Capital Press

LACEY, Wash. -- The smell of grilling steaks had 250 Army soldiers and their families eager to dig into a feast sponsored by ranchers and farmers in Washington and Oregon.

The May 27 event at the Lacey Community Center followed a formal deployment ceremony, where the colors of the 504th Military Police Battalion were furled. In June, the two companies will deploy to Afghanistan, where they will unfurl their colors and begin training Afghan police.

"We'll be gone for a year," said Lt. Col. John Voorhees, a New Jersey native and commanding officer of the 504th, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The troops have been training for the past year at Fort Polk, La., and Fort Carson, Colo., he said.

"These men and women are all volunteers who want to make a difference," he said. "Today, though, we're all here for one purpose: Nobody's gonna turn down a steak dinner."

Dinner fixings were donated by members of the Washington Cattlemen's Association, Country Natural Beef, the Washington Potato Commission, the Washington Dairy Federation, the Washington Dairy Commission and Darigold.

As they manned the grills, the cattlemen said they were moved by the responses they had already gotten.

"One young sergeant told me, 'Thank you for doing this,'" said Dick Coon, president of the WCA. "We should be thanking them."

Norm Birch, also of Country Natural Beef, said 20 head of cattle provided the 800 or so pounds of 1-inch-thick, bone-in rib steaks. He refused, however, to divulge the recipe for the dry rub.

"This is an outstanding opportunity to give something to these young people," said Jack Field, executive vice president of the WCA. "Every cattleman I talked to who wasn't able to be here said, 'We wish we could be there.'"

After everyone in attendance had eaten their fill of meat, potatoes, cole slaw and rolls, a few soldiers grabbed a steak or two for later.

After walking through the crowded dining hall and visiting with some of the honored guests, cattleman Rod Wesselman of the American Angus Association said, "One young woman said she had eaten steak only twice in her life, and never knew it could taste so good. I told her, 'You didn't have good meat.'"