A steaming bowl of pho

Since the winter of 2003, I will always have a special place in my heart for a little pho place in White Center, which shall remain nameless. My then 21-year-old son was about to deploy with the National Guard to Iraq for a year. Just before he left Seattle for training in California and the flight to Kuwait, I told him I would take him anywhere in the Seattle area for a meal, no restrictions.

What I had in mind was a truly memorable place. I hoped the food and experience could carry him through a year of endless MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and reruns of the most expensive cafeteria food in the world, courtesy of the military and Kellogg, Brown and Root (aka KBR). Family and friends also promised to supplement his Iraqi chow with instant (faux) pho, chai tea, dried nuts and fruit and other miscellanea, to arrive in care packages from home.

However, for his send-off meal, my son chose his favorite pho place, right in downtown Rat City. When we arrived, it was apparent he was not a new customer there, as the owner recognized him. A few months later, when I went back for a solitary bowl during my son's deployment, attempting to feel closer to him (and failing miserably), the owner remembered me. He asked about my son, and if he was okay.

About eight months into my son's deployment, a mess hall full of soldiers eating their Christmas dinner was hit by a suicide bomber. About 70 people were injured, 44 of them soldiers. Two died.

So for the rest of his deployment, my son – like many other soldiers – lived primarily on care packages and snack food he could find in the mini commissaries on the base, or from the vendors who set up stands and sold fast food around the compound. Protein bars, coffee, energy drinks, chips, Gatorade, juice and shawermas (similar to gyros) became his diet mainstays.

After his return, one of the first meals we went out to eat together was a steaming bowl of pho. Back where we started, in a truly memorable place.