A soldier son who grew up at around family’s Mexican food factory sobbed tears of happiness when he was able to taste his mom’s home-cooked food again after months in the Middle East.
Michael Angelo Trujillo, 35, from Roswell, New Mexico, was deployed to Kuwait with the Army Nation Guard, where he conducted logistics operations and transported equipment throughout Iraq, Syria and Jordan.
Growing up, Michael was always around his family’s tortilla factory, El Charro Mexican Foods, which his great-grandfather founded in 1949, and has been passed down through four generations to Michael himself.
A young Michael is even the face of the brand, appearing on the logo for the tortillas, and the 35-year-old looks back fondly on the likes of his time at the factory, family gatherings and his mom Mireya’s homemade tamales.
While based in the Middle East, though, Michael struggled to find tastes of home.
Care packages can take around two weeks to arrive on bases in the Middle East, Michael said, so his family were only able to send dry chips and tortillas, as the likes of tamales, frozen and uncooked, cannot travel.
But when Michael returned home on February 14, he immediately headed to the tortilla factory.
Mireya informed her son that she had just made a fresh batch of tamales, and so when Michael went to take his first bite, a family member started recording the moment on the soldier’s phone.
As soon as Michael tasted the food, he immediately started sobbing tears of happiness, the flavors bringing back memories of everything he had missed and sacrificed.
He said: “I hadn’t eaten all day, so I was already hungry and excited.
“But when I took my first bite, something unexpected happened.
”Memories started flooding my mind — family gatherings, my childhood making tamales with my family, and watching our tortilla factory continue to grow and succeed over generations.
“The Middle East has great food, but Mexican food from home hits differently.
“There truly is no taste like home.
“Being able to eat my mother’s cooking again after months away brought overwhelming happiness.
“I had lost some weight during deployment and missed home-cooked meals more than I realized.
“When I took that first bite, the emotions hit me and tears started rolling down my face.”
