CHRISSY: We did take contact from the enemy in Afghanistan. So we saw some combat. But our training kicked in, and the adrenaline rush made it less scary. My most scary moments over there weren’t combat-related, actually. Early into my Afghanistan tour, I got food poisoning really bad and needed 2 IV’s because I was so dehydrated. They pushed anti-nausea medicine into my IV, and I didn’t know I was allergic. My throat immediately closed up. My boyfriend was deployed with me and they allowed him in the medic shack to be with me. I looked over at him because I wanted his face to be the last thing I saw before I died. I was convinced I wasn’t going to make it, but they gave me an anti-histamine, and I was ok, except my blood sugar was so low I was slurring my speech.

     The other scary experience was when my truck rolled over into a water canal that was actually sewage water. My driver and I were trying to push the door open from the inside while one of the other sergeants tried to open it from the outside. He thought he was going to watch us drown, which I honestly think would be worse than being on the inside drowning. Fortunately, the water stopped coming in when it got to chest level, but we had to take all of our gear off and climb past the radio mount to get out. Millions of dollars in equipment ruined. It was a real mess, but thankfully we all got out alive.

BEN: YIKES! Well, we are all glad you made it through those experiences! Blessings. What was the accessible nutrition like during your tours? And were there fitness or training facilities to get workouts in?

CHRISSY: So, interesting story there. When I was in Iraq, I was on a small outpost the size of a football field. The food was pretty terrible unless we had someone important visiting, like a general. So I ended up eating ramen most of the time. In Afghanistan, the food was a little better, but they made interesting substitutions for common foods that really missed the mark. For instance, they gave us cabbage to put on our hamburgers instead of lettuce and served spaghetti sauce with grilled cheese instead of tomato soup. My mom sent me some pepperoni and flat bread and we made mini pizzas in our room on a hot plate for a treat when the chow hall had less-than-appetizing options.