SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- Dining facility chefs Sanu Bhai Bhujel (left) and Richard Sabiyan prepare hams at a 379th Air Expeditionary Wing dining facility at this desert base. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Stanley Coleman)
Posted on 01/04/2006 5:27:40 PM PST by SandRat
1/4/2006 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- An army marches on it stomach.
Napoleon Bonaparte said, and believed, that in 1812. Truth is he might have been thinking more about the importance of a good supply line.
But a visit to a military camp -- then or now -- would reveal that good eats and tasty treats are just as important to the troops. Get it wrong, and the troops are not happy.
The Airmen of the 379th Expeditionary Services Squadron’s food service flight know that. It’s why they strives to provide the best variety of food -- meats, seafood, vegetables, beverages and desserts -- to coalition forces at this desert base.
“We take pride in making sure the troops eat well in a comfortable facility and that they have plenty of entrees, desserts and beverages to choose from,” said Tech. Sgt. Shannon Midgette, the assistant manager of the squadron’s Manhattan Dining Facility.
The squadron manages the largest food service operation in the region -- the second largest in the Air Force, said Master Sgt. Troy Miller, who manages the Somerset Dining Facility and is the acting food service flight chief. The squadron needs several dining facilities to feed the thousands of troops here.
“Our services include around-the-clock provision of hot meals and flight meals (for aircrews and shift workers) that include sandwiches and prepackaged food products,” Sergeant Miller said.
In addition to breakfast, lunch, dinner and flight meals, the dining facilities host special events. These include birthday meals and distinguished visitor (DV) dining. Troops get a good variety, including steak, shrimp and lobster.
Attention to detail and long hours to prepare good food is not all the staffs provide. The services team also puts up holiday decorations, plays music and have televisions at the dining facilities.
“It’s all about service,” said Master Sgt. Hazel Jordon, a shift manager at the Independence Dining Facility. “The services staff is dedicated to providing quality service.”
Feeding so many troops has its challenges. The services staff must deal with portion control, the addition of variety items -- like a pasta or taco salad bar -- customer satisfaction and working with vendors to ensure food availability.
The holiday season presents its own challenges. There are special meals to prepare, more people to deal with and special guests to contend with. So making sure each person gets the right amount of food is essential.
“We have to make sure there is enough food for everybody,” said Master Sgt. John Underhill, the Manhattan Dining Facility manager. For example, providing overly generous “servings of dressing early in the day may cause us to run out of that item before” the end of the meal, he said.
The dining facility crews must also contend with the supply chain Napoleon talked about so long ago.
“Items that are readily available back home are not easily provided in a deployed situation,” Sergeant Midgette said. “People ask us, ‘Why can’t we just order and stock the items?’” The distribution process is not that simple.”
Still, the troops get good food -- though they sometimes cannot understand why the meatloaf isn’t like their mom makes back home.
“Everyone wants something different,” said Airman James Phillips, a quality assurance shift worker at the Somerset Dining Facility. “It’s a challenge to try to please everybody. We can’t flavor the food to our own personal tastes.”
People sometimes forget the dining facility staffs must feed thousands of people three or more times a day.
“When preparing food for the masses, we must cook in a certain way.” Airman Phillips said. Customer have the choice of seasoning their “food with the variety of spices and flavorings available” on each table.
Besides the dining facilities, the squadron runs a “Grab-n-Go” flight kitchen that provides flight meals for aircrew and troops who cannot break away from their jobs for a hot meal.
“Our menu includes a variety of sandwiches, beverages and prepackaged snack items,” flight kitchen manager Tech. Sgt. Joseph Newton said. “The services we provide are a joint effort between the military members and TCNs here.”
TCNs -- third-country nationals -- are the local workers on the services staff. These workers do most of the cooking while Airmen serve as facility management staff, said Airman 1st Class Sean Gray, a quality assurance team member at the Independence Dining Facility.
The local workers are an important part of the team. Not only do they prepare the food, they also serve meals, maintain the dining facilities, wash dishes and do all waste management operations.
“We ensure the TCNs follow the proper working procedures,” said Staff Sergeant Darci Furr, a quality assurance shift leader. Monitoring includes checking for correct cooking, food storage and refrigeration temperatures.
“We also monitor correct food temperatures on the serving line as well as assist in the preparation and serving of food,” she said.
Many of the services troops, and local workers, have the equivalent civilian ratings of chefs and master bakers, Sergeant Miller said. Some have professional training outside the military. And working with the local workers provides Airmen the opportunity to learn additional skills.
In the end, it’s all about keeping the troops happy and on the job.
“Food is morale and we take our jobs very seriously,” Sergeant Miller said. “We take food preparation and customer service to heart. We put our best into it.”
Chow Time!!!!!
I've eaten at Air Force facilities. This article speaks the truth.
I ate there for 4 months last year and I can say without a doubt it was the best chow hall I have ever eaten in. We had Steak and Lobster once a week.
The OIF chow is definitely the best I've ever seen on a military base. The weekly surf-and-turf is great but it's gotten to about once a month now. The steak is always great.
My only peeve is 'someone' frequently cuts the coffee with tea. Seeing that they pour the Maxwell House in from pre-opened cans I just know it's a conspiracy. And why do some bases never have coffee in their PX? This is the kinda stuff that causes riots -but our troops are just too professional for that nowadays. Too bad.
You are right about the coffee in the Exchanges. I've been dispatching boxes with bags of Seattle's Best and Starbucks to LCpl Namsman Jr. since he deployed. He says he's pretty popular with the coffee drinkers.
Namsman sends.
Amen! At Camp K2 in Uzbekistan it was the most outstanding chow ever known by this Army Viet vet. King crab/lobster tail on Friday, grilled steak on Saturday. Shoney's breakfast buffet every morning. Omelets cooked to order by lovely Uzbek girls with names given by us such as Julia (Roberts), Angelina, and Beyonce. Brought to you by Kellogg, Brown, and Root.
If Namsman Jr.'s base isn't getting coffee at the PX (it happened a lot in Babylon) I'd try getting some proof of this or something and contacting Starbucks HQ about shipping donations directly to that base. Most of the gratis stuff piles up at the log. and HQ bases, not getting to the troops who appreciate/need it the most. The bigger bases usually have all that anyways in the PX as the scumbags usually don't pull their C*^&^* around the flag pole. The command even has a gift shop here selling souvenirs so they can purchase stuff to send to the troops at the boonie bases.
If Jr. is pulling ops outside the gate S@#@#$ the coffee and get him some Modealert (Modafinil). It's all-eyes-and-ears + mental sharpness without the nerves, hype and side effects of stimulants. It counteracts sleep deprivation without jitteryness or nerves while increasing alertness and focus. It's also not addictive like stimulants.
So, sh!t on a shingle is no longer standard issue?
Morale was in the dumps. Officers were living in converted garages, senior enlisted in even worse conditions.
General Curtis LeMay was having none of that. It was a new situation for the US military. A wartime footing mission during peacetime. He was determined to succeed, but he knew he'd need his people really on board to do that. He rammed through, with help of certain CongressCritters, better housing and better food. He'd check personally on the food. He'd also personally conduct "no quarter" ORIs. (You got the bad with the good, and liked it)
Later the policies went AF wide, and have now migrated to the other services at least to some degree. When I was an active duty junior officer, on periodic "additional duty" was Operations Duty Officer, aka "Peter the Greeter". But the important duty was to go eat in the mess hall, at least once, during your 24 hour tour as ODO. And turn in a report as to the condition of the mess hall, the quality of the food, and anything else you might want to comment on. When you got there, they knew who you were, because LTs didn't otherwise eat there, but they didn't know when you were coming, not even which meal for certain. This was every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
I was shocked to find how good our basic training chow was.
A line got dropped there somehow:
All this started right after WW-II, when Strategic Air Command was established. It was also right at the birth of the US Air Force as a separate service from the Army.
BTTT
"But the important duty was to go eat in the mess hall, at least once, during your 24 hour tour as ODO."
Back when I was a Lt. in the Army at Fort Hood and Korea (early 70s), we also had to eat in and report on the mess hall.
When I was in Korea we would hit one of the chow halls. Let's just say that D-Day was not planned in any greater detail than our raids. 6 SAT Teams hitting at the sametime (1:00-2:00am), and by the time the dust clearred anything remotely eatable was gone.
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