Really???
With all that’s wrong with the military in the reign of POTATUS the First under his Secretary of Defense, doofus Lloyd Austin, the one thing the military needs above all else has been the one thing consistently jacked up almost from Day 1, particularly on the Army side of the house.
Here we are four years later, and I am about to raise hell after reading about it yet again. What makes the recurrences even more egregious is that the poltroonish Austin is a retired Army general himself and, while not supposed to be playing favorites in his position, you’d think he’d at least keep an ear to the ground watching out for his former peeps.
Illustrative of the entire attitude of this DoD is what keeps happening with chow halls or ‘dining facilities’ (DF) as they’ve been renamed.
Food is the issue here…repeatedly.
The military runs on food.
Full article, HERE from Hot Air.
Howinthehell can we NOT be feeding the troops?
Granted, I haven’t eaten in a chow hall, IDF, DFAC, DF or whatever you want to call it in years, but I along with most of my shipmates pulled KP for some period of time back in the day, when the Navy had self-contained messes. There weren’t any ‘contractors’ anywhere to be seen, everything was run by the mess chiefs, from food prep, cooking, scullery, to cleaning the tables, floors, and ALL the equipment after every meal.
BUT WE ALWAYS HAD FOOD TO EAT AND EVERYBODY GOT SERVED!
I know that ‘most’ services have gone to ‘contractor’ food services, but how/why is this being allowed to happen by the officers, much less the senior enlisted?
That is…beyond belief, at least to me. The FIRST rule of leadership is taking care of your troops!
Even worse, this has apparently been going on for four years! Austin, Milley, CJCS, et al should be fired outright for this, IMHO!
Grrrr…
Can’t say for anywhere else, but for the past two years in July / August, I attended the National Matches in camp Atterbury Indiana.
I ate in the chow hall both times and the food was plentiful and good. Not gourmet, but good.
My dad (Infantry, Northern Europe)told stories about getting C-rats, K-rats, and ten in one meal kits delivered to the front line troops in WWII. With few exceptions like the men in Bastogne during the battle of the bulge they always had food. Maybe not great but food. This was done in the middle of a two front war with supplies having to be transported over hostile seas, and overland to the front lines. If our military can’t feed troops in stateside barracks something is seriously wrong at the top. Firing is too god for these incompetents. Prison time comes to mind.
The stories from Ft.Hood (whatever it is called now) were disturbing.
Junior enlisted (not owning POV’s) were said to be hoofing it to go eat , at distances that were a 30 minute drive by car across base . I don’t know if this is true . I never ever saw , at sea or shore, scarcity of food in Navy messes . We did one time have a new SuppO , who had the mess lines do some light spooning on portions, that lasted about two days , the C.O. was doing the serving on the line on the third day with the new SuppO assisting and being publicly berated by the Skipper in front of the crew.
The Chiefs Mess had the wardroom all beat to hell on the good food, they ate good , great to have a hookup who was mess cranking in the Chiefs Mess , ate many a steak and big burgers on the weatherdecks delivered by a buddy wearing a pregnant white apron .
The Air Force had the best enlisted food by far ,(submariners too) my wife , a zoomie, even had a light maid service at Goodfellow in San Angelo in her BEQ . Hickam too had great food .
But yeah , being fed for free is part of the deal, UNSAT not to be fed , even if the food sucks.
It is a known fact that an army and navy travel and fight better when they are well fed. Who decided to contract the feeding of the troops to outside contractors MUST BE FIRED!
“The FIRST rule of leadership is taking care of your troops!”
That probably holds true for any rank below O-4 or O-5.
After that it’s to manage up. Making higher ups deal with “opportunities (they don’t have problems anymore, just opportunities for improvement)is not career enhancing.
It would seem from talking to former USN colleague, she has more meetings a day than I had as a civilian before I retired. Everything starts and ends with budget dollars. I feel for her.
20 years enlisted. At both sea and shore commands, I never once went hungry. Might have grumbled about the quality a time or two, but a bitching sailor is a happy sailor! This crap makes me want to reinstate flogging and keelhauling.
As a former Cow Killer from Uncle Sams Misguided Children I’m appalled and disgusted that this is going on. Impaling on the Capitol Mall comes to mind.
At KBay we fed 8,000 Jarheads a meal plus a few others. We did eggs to order for breakfast plus a speed line. We did steaks to order, fresh sea food, etc. Everything was from scratch. The mashed potatoes, the gravy, etc.
People to need to do hard time for this. Feeding the troops isn’t hard. But it’s important.
My first question is who has a contact on a Senator’s staff, hopefully a Senator from the great state of Texas?? They need a phone call and to have the link to this article sent to them PDQ. They will be holding hearings on nominations for SecDef in the near future…questions should be asked…
My second question is who in God’s green earth EVER thought lima beans and a piece of toast should appear on any menu other than one from a concentration camp?!?!??!!
Austin really REALLY needs to be fired! PDQ. ASAP.
You gotta be fucking kidding me…
Maybe we should reinstate the Old Corps rule for field messes across all services. Troops eat first, officers eat last. If that means that the HMFIC goes hungry, well, Milley and Austin both look like they could stand to miss a few meals.
All- Thanks for the comments, and I see most of us were Navy/Marines, so maybe we got off lucky compared to the Army!
When the services handed exchanges and mess facilities to the Sand Crabs both became FUBAR with no accountability to either the command nor the services. I remember when both had a very junior porkchop running the show that were deathly afraid to be called on the carpet of hopefully only the Suppo and NOT the Captain. I stipulate I have not had the “pleasure” of partaking at a dining facility only what a couple Army guys have told me, The exchanges are another matter. I have been in several Army, AF and USN exchanges looking for bling or heralded clothing. In the last 5 years I have found NOTHING that was made in the USA! The couple times I was able to speak with the 25 yer old MBA that was a department head I was told the if they carried made is USA products the clientele would by pass those items because they were to expensive. I have told them that I would get something in town or on line that was made in USA before I buy their off shore crap.
When you outsource the job to private contractors they don’t have to listen to ANYONE in the military. Their company bribed someone to get the contract and now have zero worries about accountability. The obvious solution is to ban outside contractors for ALL critical functions. And feeding the troops is as critical as arming them. Also find the people responsible for this and hang them.
George/Dan- Both excellent points, thanks!
I was TAD to the Chiefs’ Mess on CV 67. Damn, I ate well for 90 days.
TB- I can imagine…LOL
Thought I had posted this comment – oh well.
General Eisenhower said, “Food is part of a soldier’s pay. None of it should be counterfeit”.
Every time I think I’m calmed down from these stories I see another one and get enraged again.
The courts martial should start at the E8 level.
Reduction to E1, discharge, no bennies.
My son recently finished his 4 years in the Army. He went to Basic in November 2020. The contract cooks went on strike, and Covid restrictions were insane, so the base (Fort Sill, OK) closed all the chow halls. The troops ate nothing but MREs the entire time. MREs kept in storage sheds. In winter. Of course they weren’t allowed to use the heaters – somebody might get hurt! The basic training troops ate outside and used rocks to smash the rock hard, frozen meal packets into bite sized chunks.
After 8 months of mental and physical torture during AIT at Fort Lee (including a 2% immediate fatality rate from the Covid shots), he finally got to Fort Hood (now Cavazos, because that’s the modern priority) the next winter. He moved into brand new barracks. There was no heat. The attached chow hall never opened during the following three years. Every soldier in his unit was assigned to that chow hall, even though it was closed, and had to pay cash to eat anywhere else. (Fort Hood no longer has a bus service, by the way.) The two working chow halls closed on random schedules that were never posted. Breakfast was logistically impossible, as it was only ever served during morning PT hours, and you’re not allowed in the dining facility in PT clothes anyway.
On maneuvers, whether on West Fort or over in the Mojave, their leadership made no attempt to feed or water the troops. In 110 degree weather. In the desert. More than a few troops died or were crippled for life due to heatstroke and dehydration. Plus the usual lieutenant idiocy, like ordering troops to drive their trucks straight up (!) a cliff. Modern Army trucks are very top heavy, if you didn’t know.
Fort Cavazos (nee Hood) had an average of one Soldier die every day for the first six months of this year. Many Soldiers disappeared immediately after filing IG complaints. Some of them were later found in the maneuver area, hands bound, shot in the back of the head. These were all ruled “suicides”.
Back in the mid ’60’s – straight out of tech school – I arrived at my first duty station, Key West NAS, as an E-3 (airman) radar repairmen.
Two side bars: I was married(flatly against AF rules- nobody told me) And as there was no such thing as on-base housing for an E-3, I was immediately put on sep-rats with a housing allowance. Result was I never really ate in the navy run chow hall on the base where our company was stationed.
How some ever shortly after I arrived the company got a new commander. Story was he ate in the mess hall one time, went back to his office, and immediately ordered the entire company be put on separate rations until the mess hall – food and service – came up to his standards. I was working in the gedunk by this time so I didn’t worry about food, heh, heh.