Here is a story from a Veterinarian friend who was deployed in Afghanistan..

This is several years ago..

While I was taking care of the horses, an ox got injured outside the walls. Ox isn’t the correct term for a scrawny 900 pound bull, but every bovine here is a draft animal until it gets sick and they eat it.

I guess some farmer brought his ox to a shura (a local council meeting) we held and it got in the mud. One of our guys heard something crack while it struggled. Somehow, the owner claimed it was our fault. I had to practice my long range diagnostic capabilities because the ox was tied under a tree about 500 yards away. I went up on the roof with the guys who were providing over watch to use their spotting scope. Any good security plan over here involves snipers on a rooftop somewhere. It took a few minutes to call the injury because the ox had the sense not to move much. Finally, he pivoted and you could see the right hind leg sway like it was dangling from a rope.

My diagnosis was severe, acute badness (fractured tibia) with a prognosis of “I can’t fix that”. I recommended that they invite him to dinner. We bought him from the owner (out of kindness, not guilt) and gave him to the ASG guys (Afghan Security Guard) to supplement their grub. It could have been a Nat Geo special as directed by Rob Zombie.

Imagine a swarm of jackals falling upon a carcass with all the knives and axes from the Braveheart props shop. It is a miracle no one got hurt, although there might be some food poisoning in their future. There were no clean hands to be seen at any time. I hung around to confirm my diagnosis and to see if any obvious hydatid cysts were present in the liver, spleen or lungs.

After watching the slaughter process, I will not eat meat over here that doesn’t either have a USDA stamp or I don’t slaughter myself. They cut the gut at least three times. That is just nasty.