Since David Weill purchased the Murfreesboro location of Steak ’n Shake he has seemingly made it his mission to get to know everyone in town.

Weill has been very active networking and forming alliances with other local businesses, getting involved in church ministries, contributing to local charities, and letting local consumers know that although the Steak ’n Shake chain is a global brand, the owner is present in the store and involved in the community, trying to make his establishment a place where families want to come and eat and a positive place for its employees to work.

Decades ago, Weill had a much different mission.

He served, as many young men did, in the U.S. Army during the time of Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. Unlike many of those in the service, however, Weill brought along his mom to war, both family members serving in the 912th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) Unit.

He has documented this unique story in an upcoming book to be released in early 2023, Deployed With My Mother, not only as a way to share the family military tales but to also provide hope to others “when things don’t go according to plan,” Weill said.

“I wrote this book to give my perspective on what it was like to go to war with my mother and to share personal struggles, add a little humor and pass along some hope and encouragement,” Weill said in an author’s statement. “The stories in this book are snapshots of what happened during the time I was in the desert with my mom, and how God used each detour to lead me to a relationship of hope and peace with Him.”

Sand from Iraq

Just a few of the stories from the book involving Weill and his mother, Angela Birdsong (Capt. Doyle at the time of her deployment):

. . . I learned that they let “old” people in the Army if they have advanced medical training. Since my mom was a nurse and at the ripe “old” age of forty, I said “Hey, Mom, they let old people in the Army. They have a special boot camp for you. Want to join?” The conversation lasted a little less than thirty seconds, and you probably already know what she said. Since then, my perspective has changed greatly. In my fifties now, I am thinking that she was the perfect age, and I was too young. So many things change with perspective. Many times, a change of perspective can take something negative and make it positive just by looking at it from a different point of view. Had I seen my mom as the capable medical personnel she was, maybe I wouldn’t have seen her as “old.” Now I can see that she had experiences and training that made her more mature and prepared for being deployed.

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While at Fort Bragg, we were told that once we hit the desert overseas there was no more practice. Scud alarms would be the real deal. It was live ammunition, and there was no replay button like the video games I had played so many times as a kid. We practiced relentlessly sealing our protective gas masks and mentally preparing for war. We were told to be prepared for anything. Mom learned these lessons the hard way. We were ordered to move out for training at a new destination and we needed to bring our field jackets. It was warm where we were, so Mom in her wisdom, packed light, and she left her field jacket back at the barracks, because she didn’t think she would need it (even though we were told to bring it). Later that day, we had been transported to a thirty-degree climate change. Guess who froze? Me, because I could not let her go without a jacket, so I gave her my field jacket and I spent the training days freezing. I kept thinking over and over again, “What was I thinking asking Mom to sign up for this?” People think it is neat that my mom and I served together, and it is, but it was also very scary at times. All my growing up years, she had protected and provided for me, and now I felt it was my turn to protect her. I would learn the hard way that life was not going to give me any kind of shelter, and I was going to have to find a way to make sure Mom was prepared, or we might not make it out of this thing together.

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It wasn’t too long before we were met with our second desert reality. I kept a journal during our unit’s deployment, and on January 17th, I wrote: “Woken up at 0100 hours. Told US is dropping first bomb at 0200 and we were expecting nerve gas.” I remember Our First Sergeant walked up the steps to the barrack/warehouse, took out a Pre-nerve Agent tablet and consumed one. In an instant this communicated to all of us that we were about to start this war and we were anticipating a chemical gas response. I took my first nerve agent pill with shaking hands. According to my journal, we took our second nerve agent pill at 0900. Things were getting very real.

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After my mom, and the majority of my unit, left for the States, I stayed behind with about 60 other soldiers to finish our mission as the rear detachment, a small group left behind to close down operations. Mom had seen the ravages that the war caused in the MASH unit, and while she was glad to be home, she knew I was still there. We were able to talk on the phone, and one particular call left my mother in complete fear. As I was talking with her on the phone about 11 a.m. on July 11, 1991, I heard a loud explosion, walls trembled and glass started shattering. The last thing I said was, “Holy ***” and hung up the phone. Can you imagine my mother’s reaction when she heard the explosion and my response? She wrote in her journal that she immediately wondered if I was okay. Was I still alive or had one of her worst nightmares come true? She was worried sick.

I ran outside the warehouse, there were explosions and smoke everywhere. We were under attack! It was raining shrapnel and stuff is on fire everywhere. My heart is racing and I can not find my unit. What is my next step? I needed to get to safety, but where should I go? How did a poor kid, who had signed up to be a cook for a reserve unit in the hills of Tennessee—just so he could get some money to pay for college—wind up running through the desert, surrounded by black smoke as he tried to make his way to safety? After what seemed like an eternity, I found a safety zone with another unit of random people I did not know, and I stayed with them for several hours while the explosions kept going on, and on. Things were still exploding and there was black, thick smoke everywhere.

We finally got word that we are not under attack, but that the munition dump had ignited. Vehicles, tanks and even weapons had caught fire and were exploding, and there was no safe route out for a while. Hours later, we finally got the all clear. The whole day had been spent in a safety zone away from my unit. I finally located my unit and went in the building. I started seeing familiar faces and something strange happened. Guys slapped me on the back, gave me high fives and pushed me toward the middle of the group. I was stunned at their reaction—why the big welcome back? Why were people so excited to see me? Why were they acting like I was some celebrity to be paraded into camp? Apparently, it’s a big deal when you make it back to camp when you are MIA: missing in action. I didn’t even know I was considered missing! The unit had done a head count after the munition dump had exploded, communication gear had gone silent—the phone call with my mom had gone dead for that reason—and I was detoured to wait it out. That detour took me eight hours, and when the unit hadn’t been able to find me after the initial explosion, I was labeled MIA.

I found out later that my picture had even shown up on the evening news in my hometown and everyone there was worried about me, fearing the worst. My mom was interviewed by the television journalist near our hometown, and she had told them about the moment just before the phone had gone dead. According to the Johnson City Press, 11 July 1991: “Ammo Depot Explodes at U.S. Base: An explosion ripped through a U.S. ammunition depot Thursday showering soldiers with shells and shrapnel and engulfing vehicles in flames. The chain reaction blast at the Black Horse Camp in Doha apparently began with an electrical fire on a truck carrying 155 howitzer shells. We have lost more tanks today than we did in the whole war. It was blowing out shrapnel so we had to pull back and then boom it went off. The Black Horse Camp is a last major contingent of U.S. troops in Kuwait.”

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Check out the upcoming book for more. Drop by Steak ’n Shake, 2091 Old Fort Pkwy., for all of your cheeseburger and milkshake needs and you may catch Weill there; purchase a copy of his book and he will autograph it for you.

Weill is not the only military connection with the burger joint. In fact, Gus Belt, who founded Steak ’n Shake in the 1930s, was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran himself.

Sign up to be notified of Deployed With My Mother’s release at worthweill.hellocard.me.

“What I really enjoy doing is coming out and speaking to groups,” Weill said. To contact him about speaking opportunities, email worthweill77@gmail.com.