pizzaRight now, every red-blooded American is counting down the days, the hours, the minutes until Sunday's big event: The Puppy Super Bowl. But in a way, when you think about it, it's kind of ironic and messed up that the men and women who are overseas in Afghanistan fighting for our beloved freedom don't get to enjoy the day quite like we do -- which is, of course, surrounded by friends, family, and boatloads of dips.

A lot of them will, however, get to be surrounded by boatloads of pizza.

Frank Guidara, CEO of the Boston-based pizza chain Uno's, and a Vietnam vet himself, teamed up with Pizzas4Patriots and DHL Express to ship 10,000(!) deep-dish pizzas to U.S. troops in Afghanistan who will be able to watch the New England Patriots versus the New York Giants this Sunday. In the past three years, Guidara and his team have sent over about 70,000 pizzas to troops for the Super Bowl and for the Fourth of July. "We put a lot of time and effort into it," he said. "Every employee in this company gets so excited about this. They have that sense of pride."

But it isn't an easy process. They can't just make a couple pies and ship 'em on over. There's an art and a protocol to it. After the pizzas are made, they're frozen. They're then packed in dry ice for shipping and sent off to a U.S. air base for security clearance. Guidara said, "It's amazing how complicated the process is."

You know what, though? It's all worth it. And clearly Guidara knows that. Not only are Uno's pizzas probably the best thing the guys and gals in Afghanistan will have tasted in a long time, it'll be nice to know that people are thinking of them.

How great is this? What food would you love to send your husband or wife who's in the military?

 

Image via Bitman/Flickr