In 2002, I accompanied Harvey “Goff” Gough, former Goff’s Hamburgers owner and certainly one Dallas’ most “colorful” restaurateurs, to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Our mission was to cook 2,000 steak dinners for the soldiers who had just been deployed to the area. It was quite an experience.
Since then, Harvey and his band of loyalists have completed similar missions in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Dibouti, and the USS Nimitz. Harvey’s Steak Team Mission has new marching orders. This time the feast will be served closer to Dallas—Harvey is organizing a dinner for 10,000 soldiers and their families at the Army base in Fort Hood, Texas. The event is scheduled for early March. Harvey is looking for some local help. Donations for his project—food or money—is always welcomed, but he really needs the a local caterer to assemble 10,000 bacon-wrapped jalapenos for the appetizers.
Steak Team Mission will supply the meat, jalapenos, bacon, and toothpicks and pay labor costs. A bus will go down in the morning and return later the same day. “Media pukes,” as Harvey would say, are not welcome but publicity for the event is encouraged. I’ve signed up for another tour of duty. I say, “Hooah! y’all. Fire up the grills.”
