Meet barbecue pitmasters with military service

Some of the nation’s most accomplished pitmasters are veterans. Here are three of the very best: FEGES BBQ, HOUSTON, TEXAS For Patrick Feges, the road to barbecue began in Ramadi, Iraq, when

he was severely wounded in a mortar attack in November 2004. While recovering from his injuries and being medically discharged from the Army, “a fellow soldier gifted me his old smoker,”

Feges told _AARP Experience Counts_. He fell in love with cooking on the Brinkmann smoker and decided to go to culinary school in Austin. He and his wife Erin, a former executive chef and

sommelier, opened Feges BBQ together in 2018. Feges, who is self-taught as a barbecuer, is known as the “whole hog guy.” He said: “At the 2015 Houston BBQ Festival, I cooked my first whole

hog. I've been doing them ever since. As far as I know, right now we are one of two barbecue restaurants in Texas that serve whole hog every day.” Feges makes a point of sharing his

success, offering free meals every Friday to all veterans, now serving up about 70 free meals per week. And he’s not the only pitmaster giving back. SUBSCRIBE HERE! You can sign up here to

AARP Experience Counts, a free email newsletter published twice a month. VETERANS BBQ CAMP, MOUNT JULIET, TENNESSEE As a Marine, Frank Magana oversaw convoy security through dangerous routes

in Iraq, clearing roadside bombs in Fallujah and elsewhere in Anbar province. “After I came back from my second tour, I couldn’t relax. You train yourself overseas to always be alert, and I

couldn’t let go of that,” he told _AARP Experience Counts_. “I wanted to be around people again, but I didn’t feel that comfortable out in public. So, I found a way to have them come to me

instead by doing barbecues at my house.” After lots of positive feedback, he invested in a food truck, The Hearty Hog, which ended up winning “best in the county” in the Nashville area for

three years in a row.  “One day I was like, ‘I’m going to teach veterans how to barbecue,’” he recalled. “It helped me to get back to my extroverted, past self, so I thought it might help

others as well.”