Odd military dining experiences

[Griff Murphey]

I did not have complaints at Fort Sill Army ROTC advanced camp about the food as much as about the water. It was heavily chlorined, when we could get it. Spec 4s dumped Clorox bottles into the water buffalo trailers and lister bags. Great Kool Aid, burned as it went down.
C-rats... What can you say? Best part, the crackers and peanut butter.
Camp Hansen officers' open mess, Okinawa... Generally good food, interesting with the Okinawan cooks - they would cut the grapefruit up and down, making it very hard to get the segments out. One time they served an oyster stew. Hard to find the oysters... One marine officer remarked, "Let's see if I can snag the duty oyster as he swims by..."
Naval vessels... If you were close to the time breakfast closed, forget ordering. Better remember to fold your napkin neatly and put it back in the napkin ring (which had your name on it) because if it was left lying on the table it would be stuffed into the napkin ring as imaginatively as possible to look as messy as possible. You had to use the same napkin 3-4 days in a row.
Strangest meal on a ship: USS DURHAM, as we picked up 3500 refugees, called by the 1MC from a sea of filthy, scared, and sick humanity, to a perfect tex mex meal in the wardroom, complete with white jacketed mess attendants. Then... Back to work.
Strangest meal off of the ship: Col. Singh of the Singapore Army had invited us... many of the officers of 1-4, to dinner at his spacious pre-WW-2 British Army officer's bungalow. Picked up by a Singapore Army Mercedes with driver popping a "Monty" salute. He and 1-4's XO, Maj. "Iron Mike" McGowan, had gone to Army Command and Staff College together. Rice with tiny tropical fish in it, very hot. Chaplain had tears running down his cheeks... no amount of Tiger beer could sooth our palates. Broiled chicken was brought out and eyes brightened ... Real FOOD! We loaded our plates to the gunwales, uh oh... it tasted like it had been soaked in perfume. Ahh... we had to eat it all once our plates were loaded.
Call me a chauvinist officer pig, but the officers clubs were sure nice. Fun to play the slots out in the Far East. Good times. One day I hope to see the Cubi Point O club bar again... At P-cola.

[butlersrangers]

Here's one!

life of the party.jpg

[Michaelp]

Wierdest I ever saw was at the BX at Bien Hoa in 1969.
By then that place was like a little city-they had a modern air conditioned movie theater and a nice shopping center with a decent restraunt/snackbar.
Our rear area compound bordered it and we had free run of the place.
I was buying a bunch of stuff for the guys back on the team when a deuce and a half full of army guys in from the field pulled up.
They headed for the snack bar for chow and BX stuff.

A punk ass AP and backup appeared and told them they were not allowed in because of their appearance.
He said they had to go to their own unit which was miles away.

I was beside myself in disbelief. They loaded up and left. I still think about that shameful day.
I bet none of them ever forgot, either.
It wasn't just the "hippies."

[gtodan]

Hadji's Revenge. During Desert Storm evac'd a team of medical doctors into northern Saudi Arabia. Seems a whole Patriot missile battery was rendered ineffective after eating at the area "dining facility". Was common practice for the military to hire locals to work in the DF's under Army supervision. Really?

Anyone else ever gotten sick eating from a mermite can?

[Ltdave]

went to alaska for 35 days in 89 for Brim Frost (exercise for the defense of Alaska). all 5 branches were involved...

i was only a Senior Airman and got tagged to stick around at End-Ex to police the quonset hut housing on Fort Richardson (shares a fence line with Elmendorf AFB)...

we had been eating in the Army mess hall. nasty chipped tile floor, long worn "banquet table" tables, and plastic chairs where we had to police our own dishes and were served by sweaty BDU wearing specialists, serving up the same stuff for the last 34 days...

i had a couple of PFCs assigned to me (from Fort Richardson) to help clean up the barracks and make sure everything was good to go. i suggested we go to Elmendorf to eat lunch because i wanted better food...

we walked into the Dining Facility there and were greeted by an Airman in Chef whites, who asked how we'd like our burgers cooked (or whatever it was we ate). the food service area was ceramic tile, all polished. bright stainless all cleaned and polished. we sat down at our tablecloth covered 4-place table with condiments, napkin dispenser and flower, cushioned chair on carpeted floor. the soldiers ate in disbelief that there were drapes on the windows and not crooked venetian blinds and when the civilians came around to bus our table they were about in tears...

they were even CLOSER when i told them the DF at my home base had 3 fireplaces, a separate dining area for "private" unit get togethers, chandeliers and a rock garden outside the glass walls...

[meterman]

I served in 4 branches...missed the Foreign Legion and the Marine Corps...and this story is right on the button. The AF knows how to treat it's people. Housing, food, duty, everything.

[John Sukey]

Not much to add,except when we went TDY to Cold Lake Canada.
Senior NCO's mess.
Food served on PLATES and you had a choice of entrees.
4 person tables with TABLECLOTHS!

[Major Tom]

Mess Sgt. "get in, get it, sit down, eat it, get out". No idle chit chat there! Oh, and there better not be anything edible left on the tray when you turned it in to the KP.

[Mickey Christian]

Ship tied up at Treasure Island in Frisco Bay. There was a Canadian war ship also tied up and a couple of us met some Canadians. (In Canadian military c. 1971, a soldier could serve on a ship...so they had a few) anyway we managed to work into an invite to dinner on the Canadian ship to check out the chow.
Was really good ass I remember, but what we really liked was the Canadian Club we could purchase after dinner. Only .15 per drink so we ponied up. One of our hosts officers came over to welcome us aboard but we wouldn't be allowed to consume any more alcohol. We paid in US coin so they knew they had visitors.
They had to follow US rules about drinking while in our port. Very cool experience....got a bit of a tour of the ship too.

[Dan Shapiro]

Best military breakfast I ever had was served at the Air Force transit billets at Rhein-Main. The white-coated chef actually ASKED me how I wanted my eggs cooked! And there were no powdered eggs in sight! (First thought was that he was talking to some officer standing behind me!)

Worst meals, US Army transit center at Ft Dix. We slept in barracks that were condemned and were in the process of being torn down. 1st evening meal, we had to wait while the OOD checked the food. At one point he turned to the head cook and pointed to a pan on the steam table "What the hell is that supposed to be?"

[BEAR]

Going through Jump School at Ft. Benning in 1972 we were standing in line waiting for our omelettes ( yes, they had omelettes). A big mouthed Spec 4 in front of us said that he only wanted a veggie omelette because "eating meat is a sin". The sergeant cooking the omelettes started to put his veggies in the egg mix when a good sized roach fell from the ceiling into this guys eggs. The Sergeant looked up, then at the Spec 4 who wasn't paying attention, then put the mass of veggies on the still squirming roach, folded the egg and mashed it down with the spatula. Turned it over a few times and then served it hot on the plate, which he then gave to the Spec 4 with a loud "Bon Appetit". He then looked at us with a big grin of very white teeth and said "Meat is protein and you guys need every bit you can get." Needless to say we weren't interested in omelettes that day.

[Michaelp]

Christmas 1968.
Guy on left is former WW2 Luftwaffe.
Still living.

[barretcreek]

When I was at Diego Garcia in '84 the captain of one of the LASH ships had been a U-boat officer. Gave the Navy fits on the monthly convoys for not following the script. "Don't tell me how to do this! My job was sinking your freighters."

[jmm03]

Diego Garcia in 1975,seabees can be a rowdy lot to say the least.Large rodents sometimes would appear on the purlins in the chow hall during dinner. If spotted, it was not unknown for the hapless creature to be bombarded from all sides with anything at hand,plates,glasses,full ketchup bottles,napkin dispensers,you name it. We all must have had pretty lousy aim,because I never remember seeing one hit... The best food was when we found the mother lode of langustas on a night time outing to an oceanside reef at low tide. My buddy Mike must have collected a hundred pounds of those sea cockroaches,which we took back to the messhall and talked the cooks into boiling them up in the giant copper kettles. A pound of lobster in each hand,dipped in butter,a cold beer from somewhere,man that was good.

[Dolt]

Went through cold weather training at Fuji Japan with 2/9 3rd Mar Div. We were freezing our butts off in our fighting holes one night and the cook called out "Hot onion soup!" Everybody made a bee line for the mess truck. Everybody but me that is. I was too lazy to get out of my grave and skipped the soup. About two hours later everybody came down with the green apple quickstep...except me. Being a sh..bird saved my bacon that night.