Deerhunters sending venison jerky to troops in Afghanistan

Members of the Northwest Towns Sportsmen's Club love to hunt, fish, trap shoot, and use bows and arrows. However, last week they traded their outdoor gear for aprons and electric mixers.

For the third year in a row, they formed an assembly line of sorts to make venison jerky for the troops.

Working in the kitchen of the American Legion Hall in Arlington Heights, they used sharp knives to carve up 200 pounds of deer meat donated by club members from this season's harvest.

One member, Ron Sallee of Ingleside, brought in what remained from an eight-point, 164-pound buck he bagged just west of Harvard. Normally, this would have been a prized kill, he said, but instead he was eager to donate it to the cause.

"These guys are over there risking their lives for us, for our freedom," Sallee said. "This is the least we can do - give them a little taste of home."

While he talked, other club members used giant grinders to turn the meat into what looked like hamburger, before they seasoned it with jerky mix. Then it was back into the mixer before handing it off to their comrades holding what looked like caulking guns.

By hand, they filled the guns with the ground meat, before pressing it into strips laid out on drying racks. At the end of the evening, each member took home racks filled with strips - more than 2,000 in all - to dry overnight.

Their final step included loading the jerky strips into Ziploc bags, vacuum sealing them and then shipping them off to their final destination: the 1st Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment, deployed in Afghanistan.

Their contact is First Sgt. Ronald "Scott" Crankshaw, who serves as a machine-gunner on an Apache helicopter.

"He's a deer hunter himself," says his friend and club member, Tom Heskin of Park Ridge. "He says his men all love the venison jerky and they're patiently waiting for more."

This was the third year club members gathered for the project. In all, they spent nearly six hours processing the meat. They said they drew great satisfaction from making the unusual care package.

Many of these sportsmen are veterans themselves and making the jerky, they said, offered them a tangible way to support the troops.

"I wish they would have had this when I was in the service," quipped Dale Berg of Arlington Heights.

Wayne Wagner, a retired English teacher and debate coach from Rolling Meadows High School - one of many educators in the club - says that the project is unique, but he hoped other sportsmen's clubs would pick it up.

"Only sportsmen can do this," Wagner says. "Who else would have this much venison?"

They add that deer meat is leaner than beef and makes for a portable snack for troops in the field that offers rich protein and serves as a comfort food at the same time.

"It's a reminder of home," Jim Mertins of Arlington Heights says. "For these guys in Iraq and Afghanistan, we hope they know how much we appreciate them."