U.S. Troops denied hot breakfast in Afghanistan?

Originally posted by ChrisF231

AFAIK the fast food franchises are only on stateside bases. I would be shocked if Burger King, McDonald's, Subway, etc have locations on Iraq or Afghanistan bases.

Don't be shocked. BK, Pizza Hut, Green Beans Coffee Shops, etc, etc. From what I remember though when I was Medevac'ed was that Gen. Mattis (I think it was him?) was trying to shut these down.

But after looking at the food these places sold, I would stick with the MRE's.

But rotating out through Kuwait, the restaurants on base were pretty good. And they even had a Starbucks there with WiFi.

Originally posted by MystikMushroomNow, I get it that having something taken away that was nice sucks...but if you add up all the other benefits of military service:

Based on your list you don't seem to know very much about the military or the pay/benefits.

Hops are something of an anachronism in the modern military. Unless you have unlimited time and money to pay for a hotel while waiting to fly “space available” – it’s not much use to anyone at all. In 24 years I tried to “hop” one time. To Hawaii – 14 days leave. Waited 4 days at Pope AFB for the first flight which was not a big deal since I could drive home to stay. Got to Alabama then got bumped for 3 days. Had to stay in a hotel for 3 nights eat out etc., then got to California 1 day late for the 72 hour rotation. Waited again in the high cost of living area for that flight then got bumped to wait another 72 hours for the cycle. Got on the flight to Hawaii – flew 5 hours and had to turn around for mechanical issues. Waited another 72 hours. Spent ¾ of my leave staying in a hotel in California for about $100.00 a night – never made it to Hawaii and almost didn’t make it back to Pope on time. Spent a month’s pay on food and hotels…awesome benefit. If you are on no schedule and have infinite amount of time sure. I wish we got the Pelosi treatment – 100K worth of government booze on unlimited flights.

Uniforms are not "free" - we have to pay for them. Enlisted Soldiers get their uniforms issued once then get an allowance once a year which will cover the cost (almost but not quite) of keeping you in new panties, socks and underwear. It doesn't nearly cover the cost to replacing the uniforms you will need if you are deployed as the contract requirements are so low that the uniforms wear out in about 30-90 days of combat wear.

Officers get nothing issued at all - ever. It can cost upwards of 3K for a new 2LT to get all the uniforms required upon commissioning. That is more than a month’s pay - BTW for a 2LT. Most Soldiers buy a lot of tactical gear as well – I estimate I probably spent 5K a year on military gear of various kinds and I was in SF with almost an unlimited wish fulfillment card. Some things are just not available to you, you need them so you buy them.

Commissary – really? Same price all over the world? Hardly, the prices at the commissary are market driven just like at Wal-Mart. It is cheaper than the local stores I admit that; however, this mysterious tax advantage is countered by the MWR “surcharge” which is equal to the taxes I’d pay off post. The only time it was worth it to shop on post with the long lines and poor service was when I lived on post and that was the closest store.

BAH – or as you call it a housing allowance. Sure we get one that is because Soldiers are underpaid for the job they do. PMC’s pay people 130k+ a year to do what the military pays an E4/5 30-40K to do. It is set by law to cover 75% of the cost to rent/own a suitable dwelling for your rank/family in the local area. If you choose to rent that’s your call – why would you not buy? You take the risk of losing money like everyone when you buy a house and pay the mortgage for 3 years then have to move. You ever make equity in three years on a mortgage? A lot of Soldiers got screwed on the housing bubble…

TriCare is fine when you are on active duty it is completely free of cost. However, try using it when you retire and you’ll find if you can find someone to accept it (pays less to the provider than Medicare) you’ll drive an hour to get there. My “free” healthcare for life deal costs me upwards of 2800.00 a year in co-pays and fees.

Free food in the Mess hall is not free. You either get a card – for enlisted folks, or a separate rations allowance of about 200.00 a month. When have you ever eaten for 200.00 a month? It’s the same for a family of 5 as for a single Soldier. Speaking of pay again I had a CW3 who was my Team Chief (2IC) who qualified for WIC and food stamps because he had 4 kids. Now for what he did on the Army he’d get paid 200K easy from a PMC to do the same thing; but his pay was so low he qualified for food stamps? We are rolling in it are we not? CW3 is a Senior Leader BTW upper management. Officers, get nothing in the way of food allowance BTW.

I think I could go on but I won’t.

reply to post by Golf66


Whenever they did this to us, my theory was that some PBO at Brigade was screaming about wasting money on pallets of MRE's and they just sat there, often in a non-climate controlled warehouse.

Fed a lot of Iraqis that way though. After removing the Pork items, though I did catch a couple of smart@$$es trying to pass them out. They were dealt with appropriately.

Originally posted by FortAnthem
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

Soldiers these days are so damn spoiled.

Wah, I can't have my hot breakfast anymore.

In my day, we were just happy to have something that would fill the stomach. Taste and heat was optional which is probably why every MRE came with hot sause which we put on everything.

Ummmmm it was not a Soldier who complained about the meals. believe me soldiers are still just glad to have a

meal be it hot or cold. they eat it and keep it moving. however, feel free to tell those crybabies how you really feel.

I have to admit i'm with the "suck it up soldier" brigade on this one.

Plenty of people don't see anything for breakfast. Soldiers always used to be trained to weather harsh environments and adapt to the crappier situations. Moaning about not having a hot breakfast is not the way to do that. That said, it was a mum who complained wasn't it?

Yes i know food is important to soldiers, but you make the best of what you have.

For the record, i'm not sure what the US MRE's are like, but the ones us Brit's had in the 80's/90's were gorgeous!

More bacon grill please.

CX.

Hell, I used to take a bag of MilkBones with me in my ruck. They last forever, just one is filling and they don't taste all that bad. Ya gotta have some water though to help wash them down otherwise you will have the worst case of cottonmouth ever.

But they worked in a pinch. A lot of my troops started carrying them as well.

reply to post by Golf66


Thank you for clearing up some of the lies that are being spewed about in this thread. The responses in this thread show how people really feel about the soldiers overseas. I also know some people who were enlisted and had to go on food stamps to feed their family, and I was in the military from 2003 - 2006. In other words before the housing bubble burst.

As far as the MRE situation goes, MREs are god awful! I can't stand them. Whenever I was in the field and they gave out MRE's (usually for lunch) I'd just skip that meal and eat the hot meals of the day (usually breakfast and dinner). However having said all this, I'd be alright with them switching to MRE's for breakfast because normally I don't even eat breakfast. I certainly rarely ever ate it when I was in Iraq (mostly because we ran missions at night and I was sleeping when breakfast was going on). I still feel for these soldiers though and decisions like the one in the OP to replace breakfast with MRE's was one of the many reasons I got out as soon as I could.

You know if we have the technology and capability to make the soldier's life a little easier in a combat zone, why would we actively suppress this? Sure in previous wars life was hell for soldiers, but this isn't one of those previous wars. We have the capability to give these soldiers hot breakfast so I see no reason not to. I'm sure any of these Vietnam or Korean War vets would have given anything to have a consistent hot meal while they were deployed overseas. So why are they hating on the soldiers who do have it and are having it taken away?

Hey can anyone point out where a soldier in the article spoke about the meals????

seems to me that some soldiers mom ( didn't like the fact that lil Johnny is not getting a hot breakfast) well I'm sure that soldier is doing fine. his/ her mom really needs to let lil Johnny off the tit! i swear " helicopter parents" do more damage to their kids than anything. I'm sure lil Johnny is thanking his mom now... not for the letter to the Rep complaining that her son should have better eating...... not for the Rep asking Big Army why its not feeding its soldiers 3 hot meals a day........., but for the hard time his fellow brothers/sisters in arms are giving him, because his crazy uniformed mom mouthed off without doing her research.

and as the saying goes " sh*t rolls down hill "

jeeez mom really! thanks, just thanks..... unbelievable! mommy needs a friggin hobby!! let Johnny grow up for christ sake! you've had 18 years to twist lil johnny's mind up, now let the NCO's have their turn!

stop being stingy mom!!

Oh.... I'm calling dibs on the chilli-mac!! ...... hey bro...I'll trade you my lemon poppy seed snack bread for that pack of m&m's!!!! yummies!!!

reply to post by DOLCOTT

You seldomly hear about the the G.I who gives his MRE's away or gives his personal belongings a jacket or a sweater to the child who is hungary or cold.

That is a powerful imagery but for those in the know the context of those actions can be motivated by many non altruistic motivations. In a battlefield surrounding yourself with civilian children is often a tactic to avoid being targeted and outside of an hot zone it serves a part of the psyops to conquer hearts and minds, I'm not saying that all troops act in this faction, or even intentionally, but just to provide a different viewpoint to those that will simply take the view point you presented as an general show of solidarity. One needs also to consider than most of the time the chaos of war is imposed on those same children, not only destroying their present but their future.

In Vietnam that practice was later exploited, even if in most of Hollywood productions shows it as a predation on the good will of the soldiers, there it became a double edged sword a bubble gum for a grenade.

This shielding tactic is not particular of the US for instance in Ireland the UK troops also practiced/practice the same...

reply to post by Panic2k11


Holy smokes! I had forgot all about that. My pockets were always full of candy so I could get my free for charge human shield.

In some areas we actively discouraged the Soldiers from interacting with the children as the insurgents really didn't care about them. Often took our adopted dogs along with us as they helped keep the kids at bay.

More often than not, we would give the Imam/Mufti or School Headmaster the food so he could pass it out.

I never ate the local veggies though I did the meat and bread downrange and never got sick once. The unleavened bread fresh out of a stone oven is Delish! The locals always made good money off of us whenever we did a foot patrol.

American Soldiers in world war 2 didn`t get hot breakfast but they managed to help win that war.
Anyone can win a war with state of art weapons AND a hot breakfast but it takes a real warrior to win a war without a hot breakfast.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I personally think that at (all of the meals) the military should have the options of a hot and/or cold meal; or a mixture of hot and cold food items.

For instance:

Breakfast - Cold cereal, scrambled eggs, sausage and toast

Lunch - Sandwich, soup and salad

Dinner - A good grade of cooked meat or poultry; veggies and a salad

They should have choices given to them; not taken away!

Originally posted by PLASIFISK

Oh.... I'm calling dibs on the chilli-mac!! ...... hey bro...I'll trade you my lemon poppy seed snack bread for that pack of m&m's!!!! yummies!!!

edit on 31-1-2013 by PLASIFISK because: (no reason given)

edit on 31-1-2013 by PLASIFISK because: (no reason given)

Now that is one MRE I would eat right now!

Chili-Mac, Crackers and Tabasco. Yuuuum! Yuuuum!

I actually mean that. I hear they have Burritos now, I wonder how they taste.

Originally posted by TDawgRex
reply to post by Golf66

 

Whenever they did this to us, my theory was that some PBO at Brigade was screaming about wasting money on pallets of MRE's and they just sat there, often in a non-climate controlled warehouse.

Fed a lot of Iraqis that way though. After removing the Pork items, though I did catch a couple of smart@$$es trying to pass them out. They were dealt with appropriately.

We had pallets and pallets of MREs at the compound. We hardly ever ate them other than on mission. We had so many we used them to reinforce the walls at some points. We gave a good many out to the people as well. The Afghanis love that #... 3K calories in a meal who needs more than one a day anyway.

We had one "meal" a day - at shift change after the brief we'd fire up the grill and spend an hour cooking goat burgers or whatever meat animal was on the menu that day. Rest of the day was on you. I did have a Team Sergeant who paid what for the locals was a crap ton of money (like $1.00 each) to buy fresh eggs every day so he could have his fried eggs in the morning - dude made a mean egg/onion on pita for breakfast.

It must be all about BACON

No more bacon! No more eggs!

How does one live without fried bacon!

I don't care if they are soldiers or candle stick makers.

You DO NOT take away a guys BACON!

Seriously, WTF. To all the posters saying suck it up! You go over there and have people shooting you. See how you like it with no Bacon.

P

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by Wrabbit2000

 

I personally think that at (all of the meals) the military should have the options of a hot and/or cold meal; or a mixture of hot and cold food items.

For instance:

Breakfast - Cold cereal, scrambled eggs, sausage and toast

Lunch - Sandwich, soup and salad

Dinner - A good grade of cooked meat or poultry; veggies and a salad

They should have choices given to them; not taken away!

That's pretty much what they eat on the decent sized COBs and FOBs. The smaller COPs don't really have much in the manner of a DFAC though. They make do with what they have.

We often mixed what we all had, sometimes with the local Soldiers and made a "Special" meal. Most times it was pretty good, but their were a few, um, accidents.

There I was on the berms in Saudi we would displace for log pac boxes of snack food and hot breakfast
Grey eggs and sand bacon and sand,sand sand and sand with sand.
So combat arms guys don't lead a glamorous life when we work.

reply to post by cavtrooper7


I love me some SPAM!

Um...Sand? No way.

Bloody heathen. At least the Vikings had a minimum of taste buds.

As a German I don't understand the problem I am not in war and still I don't have a hot breakfast... come on america now wonder that a lot of people are obese in your country if you even need a hot breakfast.

and they are soldier, they are not on a playground. what do they expect? Hot breaksfast... want some lotion for the dried skin aswell? maybe some nailpolish? pussies. a few decades back they would be happy to get breakfast.

Originally posted by TDawgRex

Originally posted by PLASIFISK

Oh.... I'm calling dibs on the chilli-mac!! ...... hey bro...I'll trade you my lemon poppy seed snack bread for that pack of m&m's!!!! yummies!!!

edit on 31-1-2013 by PLASIFISK because: (no reason given)

edit on 31-1-2013 by PLASIFISK because: (no reason given)

Now that is one MRE I would eat right now!

Chili-Mac, Crackers and Tabasco. Yuuuum! Yuuuum!

I actually mean that. I hear they have Burritos now, I wonder how they taste.

dude!!! many-a-fight has started over the chili-mac!!!!