Odd military dining experiences

[fjruple]

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.

Tom-- Better yet. "Inhale your food and chew on the way out! Ft. Dix Basic Training - 1975

[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.

[Ken The Kanuck]

Not having been in the military I am not too sure if my contribution counts, but it does have to do with the US navy. I was working in Bander Abbas in Iran in the 70's and the Shah had bought a bunch of ships from the US navy. I was helping to run a construction camp for the workers on those ships who ex-navy guys. One day a US ship came into port and naturally a bunch of the guys knew one another. Some of the sailors came to the mess hall for dinner, as I was running the canteen I struck up a conversation with a couple of them. It turned out that for some reason the ship's mess did not have a particular item (I think it might of been pineapples, but to be honest with you I cannot remember). It turned out that we had lots of what they were missing, but our beer supplies were low. The ship had more beer than they needed so we struck a deal, a very good for us. We were traded beer for the missing item at a rate of about 5 to 1.

Everyone was happy, my guys got some beer and the ship's crew got what they were missing as what we had was considered to be gold and we got a great deal.

Just goes to show you whenever the government is involved they will fook it up.

KTK

[Major Tom]

As OOD, I had to inspect the mess hall when they closed up for the night. I'd walk in with the 1st cook, turn on the lights and the floor would always be a moving black mass of cockroaches. 8-(
On the other hand, when in 'Nam, Special Forces officers would show up at the back door to our mess hall wanting rations for their camp. We always had a surplus of beef especially steaks. The SF guys would trade captured weapons for steaks. Gun running was very profitable when selling those weapons to GI Joe.