The military is the only government agency that I still respect. I pray that it will remain so, but given the corruption and ineptness that came with Clinton, Dorkbama, and the soon to come Biden and the Succubus, I’m afraid that even that institution will be soon be populated with members that actually believe socialist crap.
About the only time I ever wished I’d went into the NAVY instead of the ARMY was chow time. My oldest brother was a cook in the Navy until he retired as a Master Chief. He took cooking to another level!
Roast Young Princess Anne Turkey was prolly from Princess Anne, MD.
That’s right and the Mess Sergeants took pride in their mess halls.
I think civilians do it now.
We had our Thanksgiving dinner dropped off by helicopter in Nam, and it was good. We were in the rear for Christmas.
I was Air Force in the 1970s and the chow halls always put forth fabulous spreads for Thanksgiving and Christmas (may Easter as well).
My father was in the Navy during WWII and it used to tick him off in the sense that the holiday meals were so great, but why were the normal chow meals so crappy the rest of the time?
Generally, I thought the Air Force chow halls made pretty good meals, about the equivalent of today’s Golden Corral.
These Christmas dinners, down thru the years, all sound good.
I got to have my picture taken holding a turkey leg
At the chow hall on Christmas in chu Lai Rvn in 1967.
“I was Army”
My dad was in for 20 years....taught me how to make real SOS.....now THAT will stick to your ribs. LOL
When I was USAF at Yokota AB in Japan in the mid-1980’s, the chow hall....er, Dining Facility, always had steak for Christmas dinner. Table cloths with candles. Dress Uniform required at the main Dining Hall.
Not Mess Dress, of course. Nobody could afford that after buying stereo gear and cameras.
Flying 11-12 hour missions with my Navy crew in the mid 80s, the Reel Ops would put together an entire Christmas feast out of the Convection Oven in the Herc. If we were lucky enough to RON at Fairchild AFB near Spokane, a restaurant would smoke a Turkey for us to pick up before leaving. They were masters providing an inflight Holiday meal!
In the Navy the holiday meals were as good as grandma’s.
And steak and lobster every Friday night at sea.
Truth.
Most prisons attempt at least Turkey etc
Some do quite well especially if they let the prisoners have free reign which some do for special meals
Columbus Day....mob guys run kitchen
Thanksgiving .....blacks
Christmas and Easter ....whites
You kippur and Roshashannah.....Jews obviously who tend to fix Sephardi dishes....maybe some pirogues and brisket too
Rest of the year the joint runs the kitchen and lol you can tell....the guards glom the good stuff for their clubhouse
My high school best friend’s dad spent thirty years active duty. First ten was as a Navy cook. The next twenty were as an Army cook. For some reason after serving during the Korean War he refused to ever eat chicken again.
I was in the AF in the 70’s. Steak every Saturday night. No Mess hall/KP duty, except during Basic. Food was pretty good. There were some dining halls that served better food than others. Word got around and people started go to the “better” dining halls on our base. The base commander put a halt to that and made us stick to our assigned dining halls.
Christmas and Thanksgiving was epic. Since I was in tech school, even those that lived off base jointed us for Thanksgiving Dinner. We explained that we were a class that wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving together. So everyone, met at the dining hall at the set time. We pushed together numerous table and ate as one “family”. There had to have been 50 + of us that included spouses and children for a few of the class members.(If I remember correctly, even one or two of our instructors joined us.).
The staff were so in awe, that they helped set up our tables. The class leader even said grace, before we ate. After eating, the main course we were sitting around talking, the staff brought out trays of pumpkin and other pies with whipped cream or ice cream for the toppings.
Army in Korea in 1985. A large roast beef. There were a couple nice ice sculptures made by local craftsmen as well for decoration.
Thanks for the article. A couple of things about the way the Navy did thing. Up through the middle of WWII the Navy commissary system used a standard menue for the service.
Every ship, whether inport or at sea, and all Navy shore stations served the same meal on the same day throughout the fleet. As an example Thursday breakfast at every Navy galley was baked beans and corn bread. The one exception were submarines at sea.
Another fact, up until the 1930s, ships were built without a central dining facility for the crew. The crew ate their meals in their berthing compartments. Just before a meal was to be issued, 3 or 4 non rates (called mess cooks) from each mess, would report to the galley, they would pick up trays and pans of food and return to the berthing compartment. Here they would dish out the food to the men of the division that lived in that compartment. After chow, the mess cooks, stowed the mess tables in the compartment and returned the pans and trays to the galley.
I also remember the mess specialists bringing us fresh baked pastries or donuts from the galley during many mid-watches.