The Mess Hall

Call me crazy but I always did like Army food. I liked the everyday stuff --what I didn't like is when they'd try to get fancy and have Surf n' Turf night or something like that. On occasion I'd not like what was served but for the most part, I found the meals very satisfying.

What I didn't like was the Mess Hall itself at 1st AD. It was a small old building badly in need of some repairs and updates. The Mess Sergeant ws rarely around and in fact, so scarce to be found I wondered how he got away with it. From what the cooks told me, he made the weekly menus, showed up to post them and that was it --he never graced the place again that week! If the lower enlisted didn't do their jobs, I guess he would have been found out but as it was, the cooks did their jobs and so no one really knew or had reason to suspect the Mess Sergeant wasn't around. But like any young soldier would do, when the cat is away, the mouse will play. And play they did.

So, the place was clean --sort of. The food was cooked --mostly. They did get away with a lot of goofing off and I'd hear stories about things such as putting live flies into the frying vat. I'd then ask, "And you then use that oil to cook our food?" The cooks would say, "Yeah but it gets so hot it kills anything in there." Dead or not, I didn't want to eat fried fly guts! So I quickly learned to choose foods that were cooked right in front of me such as grilled items. As soon as I had taken just about all I could from our Mess Hall, we got word the entire thing was going to be gut out and redone. Thank you! That's the good news. The bad news was in the meantime, we'd have to be bused to a nearby kaserne for our meals. What a time waster!

And speaking of waste --I did waste a lot of money eating out during this time frame (if you consider the hot dog stand and NCO club dinner menu of 4 entrees eating out) because that bus business, three times a day, got real old real fast.

The cooks were very excited to get a new DINING FACILITY, which is what was drilled into us to call it --Army changing it's image and all. I liked Mess Hall, both for tradition sake and the fact that what we had really was a mess! As you know, I was "in" with the cooks so periodically, they'd take me inside the new DINING FACILITY to show me the progress. They were getting all new equipment and state of the art stuff. Uncle Sam spares no expense. I mean, Uncle Sam spares no expense to the extent of awarding the contract to the lowest bidder . . .but it was all new lowest bid stuff!

One day one of the cooks told me he had a surprise for me. So we went over to the Mess Hall and it was all gutted out --basically just four walls standing. In the corner was a pile of some of the old furniture that was to be thrown out. So the cook brought me over to the pile and after moving a few things around a bit, came upon a stack of framed pictures that hung in the old hall. He said, "I was told to get rid of this stuff and when I saw this . . ." he grabs a picture from the pile and pulls it out, ". . I thought about you. Do you want it?"

It was a sort of (but not really) nicely framed picture of Watertower Place and across the bottom in big letters it said "CHICAGO". I could tell he was really excited and expecting me to be excited too but I really did not want the picture but I was so touched he thought about me, I accepted it. But not before, of course, a bit of "I'm going to jail" paranoia!

Once again, I expected MP's to come busting through the door and arrest me on the spot for larceny. I kept asking the cook over and over if he really told to get rid of those things and if so, was keeping them an option. He kept assuring me it was fine but just to be safe, I asked him to carry it out and to my room. I'd much rather be an accessory to a crime than commit the crime myself-- it carried a much lighter sentence!

So we brought the picture to my barracks room and hung it up and actually, I was kind of glad to have a bit of home to look at. It wasn't my favorite Chicago scene but it was Chicago --nuff said! I still have that picture in my basement. Its not hanging up but its in our storage area. Everytime I clean out the basement I pull it out and stick it in the "get rid of" pile and then at the last minute, just before we load our junk up for Goodwill, I pull it out and put it back on the shelf. I don't know why but I can't seem to get rid of that thing.

We eventually got our new Mess Hall er, I mean --Dining Facility and with it came a new Mess Sergeant too. I don't think she liked me much and unfortunately, she'd play a significant role in my military career.