Chow

The Army, for all it's concern about troop fitness, makes sure that troops have more than enough to eat.

In the mornings, troops have a DFAC (dining facility, or mess/chow hall to those of us a little older) serving various hot offerings, in addition to cereals, breads, fruits, and dairy products. For lunches, troops in training are usually given an MRE or its reduced-calorie cousin, the TOTM, due to the need to keep soldiers on task during the day.

Evening meals are back in the mess hall, where the local contractor staff at Camp Shelby does a pretty good job of mixing things up to keep interest up. Over the years I've noticed most bases tend to have a regional influence in their menus. Here at Camp Shelby, it seems to be that there's a gravy offering for everything that has either meat or vegetables in it. This is apparently a long-standing tradition, as one of the local staff briefing us asked if we were getting our three servings of gravy a day.

One thing about this post that I've never quite seen before: the local food vendors will deliver anywhere, almost anytime. I've literally been stopped in a motorpool by a young lady handing out promotions for the local chicken wing shack. Given the state of my waistline, I'm avoiding this like the plague, although I've notice some sizeable stacks of take-out boxes in nearby garbage cans.

But there is one service that seems constant across the years:




The well-known mobile kitchen, aka gut truck or roach coach, is alive and well. When you've had the bad luck to get the omelette MRE, the chili dog with cheese looks pretty good in comparison.