I ordered an omelet for the first time in almost 20 years the other day. Nearly every morning from 1982-1986, it was the same thing, ham and cheese omelet with white gravy dumped on it and a bowl of Rice Krispies in chocolate milk.

I find myself amazed by this thought...but I sort miss those mess halls.

I still can't eat "chili mac"....D'oh you knew that was clean out the fridge day when that stuffshowed up.

Haven't hit the dining facility (PC term is DFAC pronounced Dee-Fac) in quite a while. I used to use the one at Fort Dix when stationed there from 1999 to 2001 every once in a while. Here at Fot Knox, the dining facility is farther away than my quarters so, I'd rather go home and eat with the wife and 7 month old son than wait in line with dozens of young troops. Besides, those kids have no other place to eat and my presence would interfere with their "relaxful dining experience".

I eat at the chow hall about once a month (when I'm the Officer of the Day). Always good to see what the junior enlisted are getting fed. It's usually pretty good, too.

I never could eat chili-mac. I'll take an MRE over that stuff.

Sometimes a good recon is in order. At Ft. Carson, the centrally located DFAC is palatable. For haute cuisine, you need to go to the Cav House, Patton House, or Stryker Cafe. The food there is much better. 10th Group's isn't bad either, but I guess they figure SF types'll eat damn near anything.
I've been lucky throughout my career. When in Berlin, our Spoon Platoon was good enough to win a Connally Competition. I built their sand table for them, which was a requirement, but it was actually a re-usable 1/87 diorama complete with scratchbuilt mess trailer, sandbag lined gravel walkways, tents, etc...
It was a tad more impressive than the sugar cube and toothpick affairs the other units used.
If we really wanted to treat ourselves, my friends and I would drive our bikes over to Templehof, where they routinely had steak and lobster on Sundays.

Having eaten my meals in "Club Crozet" at VMI for 4 years, I found real Army food quite good by comparison. My first unit, 1st Bn, 2nd FA, had been a finalist in the Connely competition for several years, and I always enjoyed meals there. Don't know if everyone else did this, but on Thanksgiving Day, the officers in the battalion wore our Dress Blues and did the serving to the soldiers. (Not the cooking thank God!) Our Battery mess sgt was originally from Louisiana and was extrordinarily good. It wouldn't surprise me if after he left the army he became a chef at a four star restaurant.

I hate to suggest it, since I'm already behind schedule in the DDD campaign, and am committed to the Dreadnaught campaign (and am way behind that stack of boxes in the basement)

BUT I have had an inclination to do a model of my original battery mess truck (kitchen in a build up plywood structure in the back of an M35) complete with M2 burner stoves and the obligatory three can emersion heaters.

It sure is an obscure area of modeling, but I wonder if anyone would be interested in a "Class I" campaign.

(Afterall, and army moves on its stomach!)

Tom

I haven't had occasion to remember that for nearly twenty years, but yes, the officers of 4/502 Inf. did that as well, in Berlin.
My last active duty Thanksgiving, in Afghanistan, was spent passing a kidney stone at about 0400 while on a surveillance mission. Prior to our meal later that day (quite good, with sparkling juice and O'dools served) a German doctor did an ultrasound on me, found another stone 7.4mm in diameter, and admonished me for NOT drinking enough beer.

Spent my first Thanksgiving dinner eating in the rain and being served out of the back of a deuce and a half at range 32(?) on Grafenwohr shooting Tank Table VII.

My second turkey day was spent at Grafenwohr as well but in one of the mess halls in the cantonement area. There wasn't enough places to sit so we ate standing up.

My third Thanksgiving in Germany was spent in the battalion mess hall. We wore Dress Blues, but did not serve the food.

My Thanksgiving dinners at Fort Hood were similar Dress Blues affairs, again without serving.

Speaking of the cantonment area at Graf, did any of you stay at Camp Cheb? That was a tent city, and the entire Bn (except the officers ) lived in GP Mediums for an entire month. Luckily it was mid May to mid June, and not February!!

Tom

Mess Halls varied widely, as we all know. Then again, there are some issue rations, that not even Emeril could do anything with -- Unitized B's come to mind. Being QM for half my career, I'm well familiar with the ration difficulties outside the control of the mess section.

I was fortunate, during my Company Command, to have a mess section that really clicked. The Mess Sergeant either traded or "appropriated" whatever he had to & never failed to have class meals. We had a Fuel & Electric Repairmen working as Baker who could make mouth-watering biscuits from Sakrete. True Story, .... well almost .... I spent much of my command tour keeping battalion from stealing my mess section ... something which, amongst other things, earned me the ire of the Bn Cdr ...

I liked to use the Connelly competition as a means to force a disfunctional mess section to get it's act together. Worked two out of three times, no they didn't win, but they were better for the experience. The trick to the Connelly is that the whole unit has to get on board and some times you find out the unit is a bigger problem than its mess section.

We did the Officer-Thanksgiving/Christmas thing at various times -- sometimes it was serve, other times we put the officers back doing the KP/clean-up.

Funniest holiday meal was 1971 Germany. Seems the traditional was the troops would steal the show-case turkey. So our new Inf antry 2LT, big burly guy not the LT Fuzz I have mentioned before, declared he'd stop that & went to Parade Rest right in front of the showcase turkey. Must have locked his mind along with his body, 'cause they swiped it anyway !!!

John

well in my experience the RAF gets much better food than the Army!

plus the MOD hires civilian contractors to staff cookhouses, but forgot to teach them to cook! a lot of the food-particularly breakfast is pretty poor.

for anyone working out of camp or unable to get to the cookhouse, then packed lunches are provided. these are commonly refered to as 'horror' bags

the worst ive been to are the mess facilites at Beckingham Ranges in lincolnshire and Warcop camp in cumbria.

some of the larger camps have reasonable mess'es, Catterick and Otterburn arent bad.

most of the time i prefer rat packs to cookhouse food-give me a boil in the bag corned beef hash anyday!

regards

joe

MY memories of Canadian mess halls are quite good. Food was generally excellent quality and even the haybox meals in the field were edible if enough tabasco was used.

I remember my first trip into an American mess hall at Ft. Benning. The place was HUGE!!!!!!! about the size of a parade square. It was there that I learned about SOS. Have never had creamed chipped beef ever again.

The British messes were totally different. The surprise when issued a 1/2 gallon mug for tea, and finding chips with EVERYTHING at every meal!!

didnt you know, British troops are fuelled by tea. we require large quantities if it to operate correctly :-) :-)

regards

joe

Some of my fondest memories of growing up in the 50's and 60's were at the dining hall on Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Ala., duing the Holidays...Christmas, Thanksgiving dinners....the milk that flowed from the machine when you lifted that big handle that would allow the milk to pour out...that was the coldest milk I would drink all year...my Dad always had us sit at the big tables with the younger Airmen, i guess so they could feel like they were home with their little brothers, (i was the youngest of four sons), nowadays I still think of all those young Airmen and wonder what ever happened to them...with myself nearly 50 now, they have to be atleast 60... the ones that made through...Thanks Steve, for this thread and making me stop this morning and remember them and the times we lived in...and that milk.

You're not kidding.
Not to start an international incident here, but I've eaten at British messes exactly twice. The first was in Hildesheim, on the way to Wildflecken. A British tank regiment offered us quarters for the night .(which they'd later regret) The second was in the British camp east of Kabul. Both breakfasts featured bangers-the tastiest looking, most perfectly browned sausages I've ever seen. Man, what a disappointment. Not even Dad's sauce could resurrect them.

I remember the first time we were given MREs. It was REFORGER ! We went over with C-Rats and a couple of the units we ran into learned that we had C-Rats and wanted to make a trade...we thought sure! MREs, man that's suppose to be the best thing since white bread! What rubes we were. We traded case for case. Man by the end of the exercise, we were really wanting those C-Rats back. After leaving 5th ID, that was the last time I had C-Rats, from there on out it was MREs.... I recall the arguments over the green eggs and ham. MY favorite was the spaghetti and the little can of white cheese. Toss a heat tab under it, melt the cheese into the spaghetti...great stuff. (good times wouldn't trade them for the world) I still have my P-38 issued from basic. in 1982.

I had two favorites. I loved the spaghetti, and found that the "ham and eggs" (green eggs and ham!!) was actually very good if you melted the canned cheese with it.

Lots of field expedient ways to cook them too. Did you ever vent the can, set it upright inside the box and set the box on fire? By the time the box burned to the ground, the can was hot and the meal good to go.

I still have two P-38s, one in my dog tags and one on my key ring. They go back to 1971, ROTC Summer Camp.

For you Marines, a P-38 is what you guys used to call a John Wayne. (Do you believe that???? :-) )

Tom

During my time with L Co, 3/6 we became quite the chefs with our MREs...take the dehydrated strawberries, add the sugar and creamer to them and a little water, dump it into your vanilla poundcake, it was the best dessert ever! (at least in the field). We got so we could tell you exactly what came with each main meal (peanut butter or cheese was the critical one).
Boot camp they'd make us eat them cold, I didn't know there was such a thing as a heater for MREs till I hit the fleet!

LOL, I still have a P-38 too. When I was in ROTC my freshman year in college (1982) we had C-Rats. By the time I went to basic in the summer of 1983, we only got MREs.

Any soldier who complains about MREs today never had the pleasure of eating the nasty original issue MREs.

I do remember getting trioxide tablets (looked like a giant purple sweettart candy) that you would light and use to heat your meal in a canteen cup.

The water activated MRE heaters are a much better solution.

The chow halls at Ft. Hood and Garlstedt were nothing out of the ordinary. At least none of the boiled okra that you get at Benning.

There was a time that we trained with a local PzG unit at Sennelager and they ran the mess hall. Good hearty breakfast and then you got to make your sandwich for the day at the range and grab a tin of sardines or herring. They sure knew how to smoke a pork chop for dinner.

Paul

Hmmm... No one's mentioned LRRPs yet-the best damned individual meals the Army ever had. Escalloped potatoes and ham, chili over rice, and other really tasty entrees.

This whole mess hall thread keeps bringing back new memories. Karob Airbase in Denmark, 1984, while training with the Jaegers-
Every meal we ate there for a month had (sometimes alone, or as a choice) hamburgers, fries, and a Pepsi.
Since the choices were always fish based, and we were unaccustomed to eating it so often, we opted for the burgers every day. At the end of our stay we found out they were made from whale meat. I'd have never guessed

That triggered a fond memory! We were driving around the back roads in Germany during one major exercise, and stumbled onto a German unit's position. (We were on the same side in this particular exercise). It was a typical raw wet early winter afternoon.

The guys had the "gulashkanone" going and handed us a large cup of the best gulashsuppe I have ever had anywhere, along with a huge chunk of fresh baked dark bread.

It was an absolutely fantastic meal, topped only by the hospitality of our hosts. Despite some of the difficult times, those years were some of the best ever!

Tom

Ah, the good old days of camp food lol

Actually, The Saksen Weimar camp in Arnhem, where I was based, had one of the best kitchens in Holland.

At least once a week, we'd get oriental food :-)

As for manouvres, normally, we'd get our food from the nearest camp available ( usually 't Harde, where we spent a lot of time shooting 155's ), and occasionally, we'd be joined by the cooking staff of the 11th riding staff battery.

We would jam ours onto the manifold of our jeeps, or any other open spot, ensure that the wouldn't fall off and let them cook as we drove up and down the range roads.

I remember setting the boxes on fire as well.

I noticed that the peanut butter was mentioned...I avoided it almost at all costs. It created complications. The hot coa coa mix was great just eating it out of the packet.

I gave a kid an MRE while on REFORGER, I also gave him my address.(He'd spent the whole talking to us on our CCP) Four months later I receive a letter from him and in it, he stated that the olnly things he found "useful" were the matches and toilet paper. I still laugh thinking about it.

Richard,

Do they continue to do the annual commemoration of the Market-Garden march?

I'd always wanted to do it, my uncle was a trooper of the 82nd Airborne on that operation. I wanted to travel the same route he did 40 some years earlier.

Ah, Army chow. I pretty much liked it.

It always got me how they could serve a special meal of steak, shrimp or lobster and there would always be a bunch of knuckle heads in the short order line getting cheese burgers or grilled cheese sandwiches. These were the same yo-yos who always complained about the food -- and I'll bet their Moms were crappiest cooks in the world.

The best mess hall I ever ate at was our D-Fac at Garlstedt in 78. We were a brand new unit (2nd AD Forward) at a brand new kaserne -- we had no dayroom, no AFN (Tv or radio), no PX, no club, no nuthin' except the mess hall. They kept it open almost 24-7. We'd play games, BS, come in from town at midnight and grap some burgers ... it was pretty good and we all knew each other.

The worst mess hall was at AIT at Fort Ben Harrison in 77. Nasty. Then we got snowed in for several days and the contract cooks couldn't make it in to work. The Indiana National Guard came in to rescue us and -- even though it was all served on those pulpy Army-issue paper plates with flimsy plastic tableware -- it was fantastic food. We hated to see the regular cooks return.

C-Rats and MREs ... well, if you were creative or hungry enough, anything was edible. Season salt, season pepper and Tobasco sauce were worth their weight in gold in the field. C-Rats were good if you had enough of them to get creative. It was horrible to carry those things in the pockets of your BDUs while practicing fire-and-manuever drills (I still have dents in my thigh bones).

I still carry my P-38 from BCT at Fort Knox in 77. Bravo-16-4! The P-38 may have been the most useful military implement since the E-tool.