Trump: DO Something! Part 1
Love all the politicians who run for office like they are the best buds of everyone who has ever served. Veterans, privates, officers, Coasties, no matter: they love ’em all, until two nanoseconds after the winner is called. Then the entire military becomes the drunk fat chick they boinked on a dateless Friday after ‘way too many, and all they want to do now is forget we ever happened.
Why the rant? Because pols for years have been blowing us – paying us lip service, and then turning away when it matters. Barracks are falling apart. Chow halls have no, or poor chow, if indeed there are ANY chow halls/messes/whatever you other folks call them at all. We talked earlier many times about the piss-poor chow halls at Ft. Hood Cavazos. Close to a year later, that should be fixed across all posts, right? Not from what I read. Here’s Ft. Carson:
Even getting access to those limited rations can be hard, given confusing dining hall schedules and seemingly random closures that make it difficult for many to access hot meals.
As Americans gather for Thanksgiving feasts, soldiers at Fort Carson, Colorado, are contending with a far less festive reality — months of insufficient meals, confusing schedules, and limited food options at the base’s dining facilities that have ignited widespread frustration among the rank and file.
That picture above of the toast and lima beans? That’s not Joe Porky’s limited diet, that was dinner one night at Carson.
Food runs out quickly, and portions often fall short of the macronutrient requirements needed to sustain soldiers’ demanding physical regimens, likely running afoul of service regulations on feeding requirements for troops. Some soldiers reported and shared photos of food that was undercooked or stored at dangerous temperatures.
The issue is twofold. Troops reported being served food that was either improperly prepared or unavailable by the time they reached the end of the line. Kiosks, intended to replace dining facilities in some circumstances with grab-and-go options, are frequently empty, particularly during peak times when soldiers finish their shifts.
“The people who deal with it the worst are the soldiers who live in the barracks and don’t have a car.”
In libspeak, they are the military’s “poorest and most vulnerable”. In my mind, they are the folks the NCO Corps should be raising the roof about, right? Joe Snuffy doesn’t get fed enough he is weaker and less lethal, in ANY MOS. NO BODY gives a damn about PT uniforms or whether their new Eisenhower makes them look like Paton when they are hungry. Senior NCOs, raise hell!
When kiosk shelves are stocked, they’re often filled with chips, sugary snacks and other items that soldiers say fall short of the nutritional standards required to maintain physical fitness as demanded by their jobs. Frustration over food issues has prompted some unit leaders to instruct troops to document the issue, capturing photos of the low-quality food or barren shelves to escalate concerns to higher-level leadership, though it’s unclear what official complaints have been filed. Military.com
Let’s call a spade a spade (or, “digging implement” if I am too triggering.) The privatization of military services has FAILED. Have we saved a few bucks? Maybe, but I would need to see the books to justify the millions they claim they spend or save. But if nothing else, no matter how shitty a day, a decent chow hall makes a HUGE difference in morale and readiness. Do we need to deprivatize military food and bring back mess sergeants and cooks services wide?
The old joke was that the military gave you three things: clothes, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Might be ugly-ass uniform clothes, might not be sleeping inside, and the meals might not be great but they were there. Now we’re stiffing the ranks on even that, and we wonder why enlistment is in the dumps.
Hence the title.
Category: Congress sucks, Pentagon, Trump!
Lima beans and toast… yum yum. Maybe what’s needed is a good old fashioned beat down of those in charge of the mess halls. No results? Next rung of the ladder. Maybe a trip to the HMFIC, or contracts home is in order to raid their pantry.
I am SO glad I have my DD214 woobie to keep me snug and warm.
I wonder if said chow hall Contractors running that show aren’t DEI picks for being “minority owned”?
“I don’t hire illegal alien day labor from outside Home Depot every day, I swear they’re vetted.”
“We investigated ourselves, and found that we did nothing wrong”
Troopers don’t get enough to eat, but don’t worry SECSTATE Blinken says the US will use all the money it has to send to Ukraine. You can’t HATE the Biden Regime enough.
It’s a bipartisan problem.
$100s of billions to the Ukraine and Israel.
And the US military gets toast and lima beans to eat.
Reason #5838 Why the US military can’t recruit.
Again…inexcusable. The very first rule of leadership is looking after the welfare of your people. When we talked about this the other day I pointed out that out of a budget of $22 million spent on “dining facilities” at Carson, only $5 million was spent on food. I guess turning all of this over to a civilian contractor did away with mess Sergeants, mess cooks, bakers, and other MOSes that we had way back yonder when I served. I reckon that the unit commander making surprise visits to the facilities and taking random meals there is a thing of the past too? In addition to forgetting how to win wars, did we also forget how to feed the troops? We laff and joke about Army chow, but the only bad meals I remember were the C Rats and even with those you could survive on the pound cake, fruit cans, peanut butter with crackers. Betcha the food at the Congress cafe or the 5 sided puzzle palace is palatable…and there’s plenty of it. Put them on the same “Meal Card” program and see how fast it changes.
Where is a SgtMaj Plumley when you need one?
“GENTLEMEN, PREPARE TO DEFEND YOURSELVES!”
Yeah! Gimme my lima beans!
MF-ers are high in protein and fiber.
Just came back from the suckiest summer training ever. Issues keeping troops in field supplied, even though only half showed-up. (Div staff had plenty of orders for their buddies though.) We were restricted to one (1) messhall on post, weren’t allowed (even with $) at any other one. That messhall got run by a no-bid contract cooking up UGR-As for breakfast/dinner. Stuck to basics eating there (low expectation, low disappointment) and it still blew. Then there was the exercise itself; the bunch I was with did okay, but others didn’t. Somebody weren’t happy about all that overall.
“Where is a SgtMaj Plumley when you need one?”
Indeed.
Well, while I was in Fort Carson, 2020-2023, the 1SBCT chow hall was run by the sustainment BN. The food was ok. I didn’t know they had privatized it.
I went to Fort Knox this last summer for CST, and the chow hall was privatized, and the food was good, better than average.
The only time I had excellent food in an Army chow hall was during deployments, and that was KBR or the other company that replaced them later. Forgot their name.
Fluor? Made stuff at Bagram edible.
I see this as a local leadership issue as well as a DOD failure. IMO every Officer, ESPECIALLY the CO and XO of every unit should eat at least 5 meals a week in the mess hall. That way they should have a perfectly good idea of what their troops are having to deal with. This isn’t only an NCO problem, it is the entire chain of command problem and if the Officers are not suffering with their troops they need to find another way to make a living.
11th SIG BDE used to require the SDO and SDNCO to eat at least one meal in their DFAC during their tour, and log the quality.
This shit had been going on in public schools for years.
What a joke the Army has become.
But, hey, you get nine recycles, right?
One of the times my father was busted back to PFC in WWII was when he’d just made Tec Sargent, and later in the day was served some “greasy glop” by a cook. He threw it in the guys face.
He got busted, but said (in his letter home to my grandmother) “It sure looked good watching that greasy glop slide down his face.”
Perhaps some of today’s men might want to follow suit?
Being fed hotdogs, hotdogs, hotdogs every day at Ft McClellan because it saved money for my grandfather in WW2. Spam every day in the CZ sucked worse though (wouldn’t eat Spam again, tolerated hotdogs).
Viennies, too!
He should have thrown it at the mess sgt., the poor cook was just doing the best he could with what he had been given.
All-hotdog diet isn’t the healthiest. He complained to the medics (who were concerned as some dudes started to have problems from it) and folk allocating money to their creature comforts instead of the DFAC stopped that.
“That picture above of the toast and lima beans?”
And to add insult to injury, those lima beans are dried out and shriveled. I love lima beans and I wouldn’t eat those.
Screw the politicians; I don’t expect much of them and certainly not any expertise in feeding troops. I put 99.9% of the responsibility where it belongs, on the officer corps, from company level to JCS. And more than a few NCOs, who should have been making themselves a real nuisance to their officers.
“our soldiers’ dining experiences at our warrior restaurants and kiosks”
And therein lies part of the problem; “warrior restaurants” my left gluteus maximus.
“Fort Carson has 4,600 meal card holders”
“In 2024, the base served food to 591 soldiers on average each day,”
More of the problem. Mess halls (yeah, I said it) have budgets and prescribed menus. Planning is necessary. You cannot run a mess hall, or a restaurant, with that number difference.
“junior enlisted soldiers had few options for food as the garrison struggled to juggle a severe shortage of food service workers.”
BS. The Army doesn’t train cooks anymore? IS KP duty against regulations, now?
“However, it’s unclear why those challenges have persisted in the force for years.”
No, it’s unclear why such incompetence has been tolerated by the officer corps in the force for years.
I have spent a number of years working in the restaurant business. It ain’t rocket science. If anything, running a mess hall should be easier than running a civilian restaurant. From what I have read some “innovative” senior officers seem to be wanting a “transformational” food service involving multiple forms of food service. KISS still applies.
PS
I do, however, have some sympathy for mess sergeants who are probably trying their best to feed troops in spite of the stupidity and ignorance of their superiors.
After all… According to Armour, it’s “America’s Favorite”.
Surely, leaving a skid of cases of these at every chow hall
is a suitable Plan C, even if some bases are too cheap to splurge
on cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and/or chicken & dumplings.
Several duty stations I served at required the command duty officers to eat one meal in the galley and rate it. Kept the contractors honest.
The British Army requires the duty officer to eat in the enlisted mess hall and report on the quality and quantity of the food for each meal.
That’s a good rule. But the evaluation of quality is questionable…I mean those guys eat baked beans on toast.😁
I rather enjoyed a “Full-English” (breakfast) or “Fry Up”. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day; in England it is also the most edible meal of the day. I have been to several different countries and a few different states and l have never seen so much brown food. English food is the same color before and after eating it.