Texas Roadhouse offers free Memorial Day meal for veterans who are dead inside
By Zoltar the Malignant
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Army Sgt. Biff Terkel didn’t flinch as he poured a piping-hot bowl of chili on his groin at the Texas Roadhouse outside of Fort Bragg.
“Didn’t feel it — I’m completely dead from the ankles up. Besides, Shirlena got my balls in the divorce along with my BAH and BAS,” Terkel said, grousing about his soul-numbing career as a urinalysis NCO with the 18th Airborne Corps with a mouthful of free peanuts he made sure to grind against the canker sore where his pinch of Red Man usually goes.
“At least chow is free tonight,” he told the waitress who asked where he got his barbed-wire arm tattoo, “Unlike your freedom.”
Texas Roadhouse is one of a growing number of establishments observing Memorial Day by not just honoring the nation’s war dead, but also honoring service members and veterans who are dead on the inside.
Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, and Kohl’s are among the many businesses offering lucrative discounts or free Memorial Day service with the showing of a DD-214 and proof that Uncle Sam did indeed rip out your soul through your mouth or ass — such as a letter from the VA, a petri dish of black mold from the barracks, or any text chain from a family readiness group.
In his Memorial Day message, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin implored the nation to pay tribute to the fallen, but also to remember those whose will to live has been sucked dry by their service.
“This year, we honor not just those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the liberties we cherish. We also honor the many hopes, dreams, marriages, and liver function many of our brothers and sisters in arms sacrificed along the way,” Austin said. “While we must never forget the noble sacrifices the honored dead made, we too must never forget the many whose lives were torn asunder by the Big Green Weenie.”
Marine Lance Cpl. DeAndre Carver said he was thankful for the deals as he lined up a dozen shots of Crown Royal on the bar at an Applebee’s in Barstow, California.
“There was a time when two of these would’ve knocked me on my ass,” Carver said before downing all 12 shots in rapid-fire succession. “That was before Two-Nine and Gitmo raped my soul.”
Terkel, after his seventh complimentary Miller Lite, expressed gratitude to Texas Roadhouse as he flashed his military ID, and a Polaroid of the empty home and bank account Shirlena cleaned out during his fifth deployment, as proof of qualifying for the walking dead discount.
“For those who have had to take a shit in an ammo can in the back of a Humvee going 40 mph in 120-degree Baghdad heat, freedom has a taste, and a price, that the protected will never know,” he slurred before puking his lungs out in the parking lot.
Duffel Blog correspondent Zoltar the Malignant was a 1994 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the witty line-of-duty injury report he submitted after witnessing an E-4 in the mortar platoon take a football to the yambag.