Lawmaker Wants Inquiry into Chow Hall Contract

[Rocky C]

By Tony Lombardo - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Apr 25, 2010 10:46:53 EDT
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A member of the House Armed Services Committee has called for an investigation into the Marine Corps’ primary food services provider, Sodexo, raising both cost and health concerns.

In an April 5 letter sent to the Government Accountability Office, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said the timing is “critical” to review the eight-year, $881 million contract between Sodexo and the Corps. The contract, to provide food services for chow halls at the Corps’ 17 bases within the continental U.S., is set to expire Sept. 30 and the service has issued new solicitations, Sanchez said in her letter, which is addressed to the GAO’s acting comptroller general, Gene L. Dodaro.

In 2001, the Corps decided to consolidate food service contracts at the national level, anticipating it would save $20 million per year and free up staff, Sanchez wrote. She added that Sodexo received the contract largely because of a cost-saving “cook-chill” facility in Tennessee, where food would be prepared and refrigerated, and then shipped around the country.

But in July 2007, the company stopped using the facility to feed the Corps. This followed a U.S. Department of Agriculture recall of 3,000 pounds of chicken products contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a bacteria that can cause food sickness and spread to the nervous system. Some of that tainted supply went to Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Sanchez wrote.

“In fact there had been a pattern of food safety problems at the facility, both before and after the USDA recall, including 79 USDA records of food safety noncompliance between December 2005 and September 2009,” Sanchez states in her letter, which cites USDA inspection documents.

In a statement, Sodexo said it stands by “our record in food safety and current business practices and [is] unaware of any current noncompliance issues in food safety. Sodexo has enjoyed a positive and productive working relationship with the United States Marine Corps for more than eight years. We take this matter very seriously and would participate fully, answering any questions we are asked, if the need should arise.”

Among the Sanchez’s questions are: Why did Sodexo, midway through the contract, stop using the Tennessee facility, and what was the effect on cost, operations and readiness?

“The fact that Sodexo had to switch gears and abandon its risky technological approach in the middle of the contract raises serious questions that need to be reviewed in detail before the Marines award [their] next food service contract,” she said.

Sanchez also wants to compare Sodexo’s actual pricing and staffing with initial estimates, which were challenged by competitors in the bid process.
Sanchez wrote that, given the Defense Department’s increasing reliance on contractors for services, more scrutiny is needed.

This “is a critical juncture to review Sodexo’s past performance so that any lessons learned from the Marine Corps’ experience with Sodexo may be applied to this and future large service acquisitions across all branches of the Armed Services,” she said.

[Integrity57]

They need to investigate the **** they serve at Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, worst chow ever.

[echo3oscar1833]

The Marine Corps needs to go back to Marines working chow. I can guarantee you the way Marine Corps is on cleanliness, things would be a lot more sanitary. Marines keep stuff clean, Nasty Civilians don't.

[Quinbo]

I agree Ben.

Mess duty aint fun but they don't have to pay over time if they keep you there working until it is CLEAN

[Big Jim]

I agree too....!! Hell when and why did we EVER get away from chow hall duty...?? I remember I did some stupid crap while on Okinawa and all I got was mess duty ...in the scullery...for 90 days...! That taught me to NEVER ever step outta line again...!!! The higher ups are just making our time honored traditions go out the window.....NO mess duty....NO field day on Thursdays.....what's next....????

[Beltayn]

As a Food Service Marine this is a fairly important issue for me, so I'll offer my input.

The involvement of the civilian contractors in the food service establishment is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it frees up the Food Service Marines to devote all of our time, energy, and manpower towards fulfilling our primary mission; cooking quality, nutritious chow for our fellow Marines. As a cook, I would want as much opportunity to spend my time in garrison advancing my abilities in cooking. It doesn't take a formally trained USMC cook to scrub pots in the potshack or take out trash. Having civilian contractors to fulfill these duties allows me, a cook, to attain greater proficiency in my MOS faster than I would having to rotate through these other duties. Similarly, it gives us greater opportunity to continue ongoing training in basic Marine Corps skills.
Having these civilians is a blessing for the cooks.

On the other hand, there are a lot more limits to how much can be expected of a civilian contractor than may be expected of a Marine. A civilian has little more incentive towards excellence than the threat of losing their job. The divide in responsibilities between the civilian contractor and the Marine chain of command is often not well established, and the two coexisting organizations can undermine each other just as much as help each other. I've often personally felt as if the civilian management and my SNCOs were at war with each other.

Regarding the specific issues brought up in the article, it's no secret that the Chow Hall at Cherry Point has been in serious financial trouble for a long time. My understanding is that there's plenty of areas that contribute to the shortfall that could be tightened up, such as waste, spoilage, and equipment replacement. No part of any operation this complex is going to be perfect, when you take the human factor into account. But the fact that responsibility for chow hall operation is divided between the Sodexo contractors and the Marine Food Service Department means that both sides end up having ammunition to blame the other.
To be fair to Sodexo, there is an endemic problem with Marines sharing their meal card number with others, resulting in us giving out multiple chows but only receiving the payment for one.

For those of you unfamiliar with how the system works, Marines who are not receiving COMRATS have a standard amount of money deducted from their pay which is then placed in a collected pool of funds. When that Marine goes to a DFAC and signs in using their SSN or meal card number, that DFAC then submits that number to the central pool of funds and receives money for the chow that was served to that Marine. In this way, the funding of each DFAC is directly proportionate to the number of patrons it feeds.
The problem is that Marines share those meal card numbers with each other, forge them, or sell outdated meal cards upon PCSing to Marines that do not rate them, and we frequently will find that the same number has been used by as many as 6 different patrons for the same meal, or that invalid numbers were submitted. In either situation, we are unable to collect money for the difference of chows served verses valid meal card numbers, and our budget suffers.

The civilian management blames the Marines for this problem, while the Marines point out that the civilian workers are the ones who man the front desk and are responsible for meal cards and enforcing ID checks. The company has not been doing a good job of holding its own workers accountable for this problem, and the individual contractors are generally apathetic because they get paid to sit at a desk and read a book for 4 hours watching Marines file past them signing a piece of paper, whether they are using real meal cards or not.

With regards to the cook-chill facility, cook-chill products are something my own chow hall stopped phased out about a year ago. We make pretty much everything from scratch using dry ingredients, which is preferable as a cook, and preferable for the patrons. Cook-chill products are basically pre-cooked meals that come frozen in a plastic bag and all we'd do is boil the bag in a big copper and then cut open the bags and pour them into pans and serve. Some chow halls serve cook-chill products almost exclusively (Okinawa being one major example off the top of my head), but I'd say it's a source of pride professionally that my own does things "the old fashioned way". While I can't comment on how the two options compare financially, I feel that doing things the hard way for the past year has significantly increased the general competence of the cooks here, and greatly increased the quality of the chow we serve and the satisfaction of our Marine patrons.
If we were to return to the old way where everything in the chow hall was done by Marines, I'd worry that we would be forced to return to doing cook-chill products only because we simply wouldn't have the manpower to sustain our current ability to focus 100% on cooking and producing high quality chow.

[Beltayn]

The Marine Corps needs to go back to Marines working chow. I can guarantee you the way Marine Corps is on cleanliness, things would be a lot more sanitary. Marines keep stuff clean, Nasty Civilians don't.

To clarify this point a little, while both the Marines and the civilians are responsible for food safety and sanitation, the Marines are the primary ones who keep the galley clean.
The civilians act as Messmen and serve the chow on the serving line.
The civilians scrub pots in the pot shack and scullery, though in truth most of that work is done by big expensive machines.
The civilians take care of a lot of the logistics such as menu planning and store room work.

But the Marines are the ones scrubbing the deck, scrubbing the surfaces, cleaning the ovens, temping the chow, and doing every step from the raw ingredients to placing the chow on the serving line.

Food safety concerns with the civilians most likely are things relating to shady store room practices, keeping stuff longer than is safe, fudging numbers, and otherwise cutting corners in order to save money at the expense of food safety.

[Garyius]

I know this is above your level, but in case the bosses ever ask for meaningful input here some is.

Use common sense. Take the meal card checker and replace her with a card swipe machine. Program the swipe to cross check ID and meal card off the ID. Os and brownbaggers wanting to pay eat can wander up to the line and find a Marine.

Take the employee thus saved and have her drive the flightline and range from 10-2 with a chill truck and mobile card swiper selling low cost puke bag lunches.

Have the officer get out there and ask the lance coolies what the hell they want to eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner. It isn't what they wanted twenty or ten years ago. Tastes change.




Regarding the specific issues brought up in the article, it's no secret that the Chow Hall at Cherry Point has been in serious financial trouble for a long time. My understanding is that there's plenty of areas that contribute to the shortfall that could be tightened up, such as waste, spoilage, and equipment replacement. No part of any operation this complex is going to be perfect, when you take the human factor into account. But the fact that responsibility for chow hall operation is divided between the Sodexo contractors and the Marine Food Service Department means that both sides end up having ammunition to blame the other.
To be fair to Sodexo, there is an endemic problem with Marines sharing their meal card number with others, resulting in us giving out multiple chows but only receiving the payment for one.

For those of you unfamiliar with how the system works, Marines who are not receiving COMRATS have a standard amount of money deducted from their pay which is then placed in a collected pool of funds. When that Marine goes to a DFAC and signs in using their SSN or meal card number, that DFAC then submits that number to the central pool of funds and receives money for the chow that was served to that Marine. In this way, the funding of each DFAC is directly proportionate to the number of patrons it feeds.
The problem is that Marines share those meal card numbers with each other, forge them, or sell outdated meal cards upon PCSing to Marines that do not rate them, and we frequently will find that the same number has been used by as many as 6 different patrons for the same meal, or that invalid numbers were submitted. In either situation, we are unable to collect money for the difference of chows served verses valid meal card numbers, and our budget suffers.

.

[FattyTheFerret]

They should inquire into those disgusting yellow blocks of styrofoam they break up with a spoon and call "eggs". :sick:

[slug]

Sodexo is making bank off of us. We pay for 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. We eat maybe 6 to 10 meals a week here, yet still pay for the rest. It's ridiculous. They won't even let us have 2 plates of particular meals either, wtf? They hire retards that are not flexible, doing a single job and that only. They have no sense of speed or efficiency, which leads us to standing in line forever. God I hate the chow hall.

[Beltayn]

Dehydrated eggs are the worst lol. Taste like playdoh. Not a whole lot else we can do in the field though. Fresh eggs don't keep and are hard to transport. <br />
They shouldn't be using dehydrated eggs...

[FattyTheFerret]

Dehydrated eggs are the worst lol. Taste like playdoh. Not a whole lot else we can do in the field though. Fresh eggs don't keep and are hard to transport.
They shouldn't be using dehydrated eggs in garrison though. You should be getting the real deal. To be honest the only Marine Corps chow halls I've enjoyed are MCRDSD, Camp Pendleton Area 52 and MCAS Yuma. Didn't have breakfast at Yuma but boot camp and MCT certainly used the powdered "eggs". :p Since then I've only used Navy and Army chow halls.



On a side note, you rate the opportunity to get seconds of the same meal once you finish your first plate. That's in the Food Service regs. If they are denying you seconds, they are wrong.
I've always seen signs that specify portion size is determined by HQMC but I guess that only refers to each trip through the line? If so, makes perfect sense.

[tdrt]

To be honest the only Marine Corps chow halls I've enjoyed are MCRDSD, Camp Pendleton Area 52 and MCAS Yuma. Didn't have breakfast at Yuma but boot camp and MCT certainly used the powdered "eggs". :p Since then I've only used Navy and Army chow halls.


I've always seen signs that specify portion size is determined by HQMC but I guess that only refers to each trip through the line? If so, makes perfect sense.


Yuma had great breakfasts (real eggs) but I got comrats so don't know about the rest. Same with Quantico.

[yellowwing]

Why not contract local? Surely Jacksonville and San Diego have competent food caterers.

Each Base already has an admin section to deal with local business. Let them do their job and let the Base be a good local neighbor.

[Rocky C]

Ain't No chow you can't fix with a Little Texas Petes Hot Sauce or Tabasco.
Always carried it, Always will..........

[tdrt]

Why not contract local? Surely Jacksonville and San Diego have competent food caterers.

Each Base already has an admin section to deal with local business. Let them do their job and let the Base be a good local neighbor.


Sound like great idea to me...or a really good business opportunity...hmmmm....something to think about.

[FattyTheFerret]

Why not contract local? Surely Jacksonville and San Diego have competent food caterers.

Each Base already has an admin section to deal with local business. Let them do their job and let the Base be a good local neighbor.

I would guess that it's ostensibly to keep costs down but I would have to wonder if that's actually working.

[SlingerDun]

They hire retards that are not flexible, doing a single job and that only. They have no sense of speed or efficiency, which leads us to standing in line foreverChow and the hall it was served up in was the model for efficiency when Marines and recruits were the only "employee's". The PX is were life came to a boggy stand still with an all civilian staff. The only ones who appear to operate with sufficient vigor are the roach coach vendors, because time is money and they make a handsome profit selling junk.

At Edson Range and San Onofre ITS chow halls, well over a thousand were in and out in about two hours and the facility's weren't that big. Left over food including what was scraped off trays into GI cans was sold to a local pig farmer as slop.
I'm sure the pig farmers have long since been uprooted and run off that trendy real estate and recruits have much more important things to do besides bust their ass on 12 hour mess duty shifts

--->Dave

[TunTvrnWarrior]

Ok, I am out of the loop. It has been more years than I care to divulge. So, if you are a Marine in garrison and not a brown bagger, they now make you pay for this swill out of your own paycheck?

[HST]

Wow! Times has changed. In my day, in places where they had messhalls, you got in line and you ate, no cards or deductions eating if there was food was part of the big green deal, if you wanted 3 or 4 eggs you told the cook to put them on your tray, if you wanted more of anything you just went up and got it.

[Wyoming]

This is probably the biggest reason why meal-card sharing is so wide-spread, because people know they are getting essentially cheated and figure they might as well pass it around and get their money's worth.


What is meal card sharing?

Agree with TunTrvnWarrior and HST, what is this bit about paying for meals? As I recall also, you could have as much put on your tray as you wanted, but it ALL had to be eaten. ALL of it. Leaving with a couple of oranges or apples was OK also.

Also, when I was night crew QA/QC at LTA, we somehow called the messhall, and told them how many brown bag meals to fix. We ordered most times twice as many and it was all damm good.

Also carried Tabasco and still use it to this day. Rocky, you need to go to slapyamamadotcom. I order and use this seasoning on most everything.

[Rocky C]

Also carried Tabasco and still use it to this day. Rocky, you need to go to slapyamamadotcom. I order and use this seasoning on most everything.


Thank You Brother:thumbup:.

[Quinbo]

This point has been argued before. There are some that believe that if you are single and dine in the chow hall the fact that you do not recieve com rats means that you are actually having pay deducted.

Com rats is not pay and not getting com rats does not mean you are having pay deducted.

If you go to the chow hall and can not produce a meal card then you pay full price for the meal. I don't know what it is now. 6 bucks? 8 bucks? Meal cards indicate that you are not recieving com rats.

[Beltayn]

DEDUCTIONS
BAS DISC MEAL RATE $286.75

Right off of my LES.
286 dollars and 75 cents of my pay is deducted every month on the assumption that I will receive receive 3 chows every week day and 2 chows every weekend day for every day each month.
</pre>

[Beltayn]

Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS). Effective 1 Jan 2009 monthly rates (Note: These amounts remain unchanged for 2010):

Officers: $223.04.
Enlisted: $323.87.
Enlisted Daily Discount Meal Rate (BAS-DMR) deduction: $9.25 per day.

Breakfast - $1.95
Lunch - $3.65
Dinner - $3.65

[Wyoming]

So eat!

[Quinbo]

BAS is not pay. Please demonstrate where your base pay which is pay is being charged for your meals.

[Beltayn]

DEDUCTIONS
FITW (FED TAX) 178.13
SOCIAL SECURITY 112.42
MEDICARE 26.29
SITW (STATE TAX RI) 59.71
SGLI $400,000 26.00
TSGLI 1.00
BAS DISC MEAL RATE 286.75
USN/MC RET HOME .50
TOTAL 690.80 </pre>

If I am not reading this right, it is listed as a Deduction from my base pay. If I am misunderstanding the LES, I'd welcome correction.

[FattyTheFerret]

It's listed as a deduction but don't you also have the BAS (Monthly) in the allowances?

[Garyius]

Congress allocates BAS as part of your pay package. The chow-hall then steals the BAS if you are single/barracks, and serves cruddy food. The money belongs to the service member. Given a choice, he...

[Rocky C]

If I am not reading this right, it is listed as a Deduction from my base pay. If I am misunderstanding the LES, I'd welcome correction.

Those Damn Rhode Island Taxes!!!:thumbdown:D

[Quinbo]

Worked at a food court here in germany for a couple years. There was a chow hall right down the road. You could set your watch on Marines coming in to get a pizza and some chicken wings. Out of pocket.

When I was a young lad we were all marched to the chow hall company level. Every swinging dick had to sign the meal roster even the officers. If you wanted to eat at burger king fine but sign the roster. The quality of the chow is based entirely on the number of members were fed. Whether the cost comes out of your ultimate pay is still debateable.

What isn't debateable is use it or lose it. You want all you can freakin eat and then some or do you want to eat a bologna sandwich on stale bread. If you completely 86 the chow hall then stand by to pay for MRE's. Take em out of your check and you get what you get ... eat em or throw them in the dumpster same price.

Even bag nasties is better than going hungry.

There is Marine ditty that comes to mind ...
They say that in the Marine Corps the pay is mighty fine
They give you a hundred dollars then take back 99
UA I wanna go but they won't let me go .... ho ohh ohh ohh ome hey

__________________________________________________ _____________________

Next thing you know you'll be telling me the Corps is charging you rent to stay in the barracks. You still have to pay rent if you are sleeping in a shelter half with a muddy bottem.

[Hanzo]

DEDUCTIONS
BAS DISC MEAL RATE $286.75

Right off of my LES.
286 dollars and 75 cents of my pay is deducted every month on the assumption that I will receive receive 3 chows every week day and 2 chows every weekend day for every day each month.


</PRE>

A little bit of quick math:

3 meals M-F = 15
2 meals Sa&Su = 4
Total of 19 meals per week

Average month has 4.5 weeks, for a total of 85.5 meals per month.

$286.75 divided by 85.5 meals comes out to $3.35 per meal, all you can eat with beverages.

Whether I'm paying for it or not, that's a great deal. I know the food isn't fantastic, but good luck finding a real meal for that price any place else.

[NoRemorse]

Ain't nothing wrong with the eggs in the chow hall... at H&S :D

[Beltayn]

Whether I'm paying for it or not, that's a great deal. I know the food isn't fantastic, but good luck finding a real meal for that price any place else.
Agreed, certainly. There's a certain economy of scale that allows that though. Applebees can't exactly expect every single patron to only order one out of two total menu options.

Cooking Mac and Cheese for 1000 patrons is a lot less expensive than cooking individual Mac and Cheese 1000 times.

[TJHOFFMAN]

:thumbup:
As a Food Service Marine this is a fairly important issue for me, so I'll offer my input.

The involvement of the civilian contractors in the food service establishment is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it frees up the Food Service Marines to devote all of our time, energy, and manpower towards fulfilling our primary mission; cooking quality, nutritious chow for our fellow Marines. As a cook, I would want as much opportunity to spend my time in garrison advancing my abilities in cooking. It doesn't take a formally trained USMC cook to scrub pots in the potshack or take out trash. Having civilian contractors to fulfill these duties allows me, a cook, to attain greater proficiency in my MOS faster than I would having to rotate through these other duties. Similarly, it gives us greater opportunity to continue ongoing training in basic Marine Corps skills.
Having these civilians is a blessing for the cooks.

On the other hand, there are a lot more limits to how much can be expected of a civilian contractor than may be expected of a Marine. A civilian has little more incentive towards excellence than the threat of losing their job. The divide in responsibilities between the civilian contractor and the Marine chain of command is often not well established, and the two coexisting organizations can undermine each other just as much as help each other. I've often personally felt as if the civilian management and my SNCOs were at war with each other.

Regarding the specific issues brought up in the article, it's no secret that the Chow Hall at Cherry Point has been in serious financial trouble for a long time. My understanding is that there's plenty of areas that contribute to the shortfall that could be tightened up, such as waste, spoilage, and equipment replacement. No part of any operation this complex is going to be perfect, when you take the human factor into account. But the fact that responsibility for chow hall operation is divided between the Sodexo contractors and the Marine Food Service Department means that both sides end up having ammunition to blame the other.
To be fair to Sodexo, there is an endemic problem with Marines sharing their meal card number with others, resulting in us giving out multiple chows but only receiving the payment for one.

For those of you unfamiliar with how the system works, Marines who are not receiving COMRATS have a standard amount of money deducted from their pay which is then placed in a collected pool of funds. When that Marine goes to a DFAC and signs in using their SSN or meal card number, that DFAC then submits that number to the central pool of funds and receives money for the chow that was served to that Marine. In this way, the funding of each DFAC is directly proportionate to the number of patrons it feeds.
The problem is that Marines share those meal card numbers with each other, forge them, or sell outdated meal cards upon PCSing to Marines that do not rate them, and we frequently will find that the same number has been used by as many as 6 different patrons for the same meal, or that invalid numbers were submitted. In either situation, we are unable to collect money for the difference of chows served verses valid meal card numbers, and our budget suffers.

The civilian management blames the Marines for this problem, while the Marines point out that the civilian workers are the ones who man the front desk and are responsible for meal cards and enforcing ID checks. The company has not been doing a good job of holding its own workers accountable for this problem, and the individual contractors are generally apathetic because they get paid to sit at a desk and read a book for 4 hours watching Marines file past them signing a piece of paper, whether they are using real meal cards or not.

With regards to the cook-chill facility, cook-chill products are something my own chow hall stopped phased out about a year ago. We make pretty much everything from scratch using dry ingredients, which is preferable as a cook, and preferable for the patrons. Cook-chill products are basically pre-cooked meals that come frozen in a plastic bag and all we'd do is boil the bag in a big copper and then cut open the bags and pour them into pans and serve. Some chow halls serve cook-chill products almost exclusively (Okinawa being one major example off the top of my head), but I'd say it's a source of pride professionally that my own does things "the old fashioned way". While I can't comment on how the two options compare financially, I feel that doing things the hard way for the past year has significantly increased the general competence of the cooks here, and greatly increased the quality of the chow we serve and the satisfaction of our Marine patrons.
If we were to return to the old way where everything in the chow hall was done by Marines, I'd worry that we would be forced to return to doing cook-chill products only because we simply wouldn't have the manpower to sustain our current ability to focus 100% on cooking and producing high quality chow.

I agree completely with you Mccoy, I would like to add the "tug-of-war" between civilian contractors and the Corps gets a little out of hand at times...

[Marine84]

Woah, woah, woah.................what is the .50 deduction for the USN/MC Ret Home?? What the hell is THAT? Whose retirement home you helping to pay for?

[Quinbo]

Woah, woah, woah.................what is the .50 deduction for the USN/MC Ret Home?? What the hell is THAT? Whose retirement home you helping to pay for?


Hey Kim I wondered that as well. That 50 cents showed on my LES every month too. Where is this mysterious retirement home? Who retires there? Is it in Rhode Island? Do you get a free crock pot?

[Beltayn]

It's one VERY clever admin Marine's retirement home LOL.

[Beltayn]

They wanted to charge CPL Matthews $4.85 for eating a banana during a break after we'd finished the breakfast meal one weekend. <br />
<br />
Seriously. $4.85 for a freaking banana. Talk about not seeing the...

[Quinbo]

I had a good friend in Hawaii that ran the chow hall on Hickam. He was a AF super senior master ninja sergeant or whatever. He said he fed more Marines on a daily basis than airman. We would drive clear across the island to eat there. Meal card is all you needed. Them fly boys turned their nose up at chow we considered a 5 star restaurant.

Lobster and steak every Friday ... show your pass and ice cream sundays whatever you like.

That was the house the Marine Corps built ... them zoomies just ate pizza hut and complained.

[Rocky C]

Hey Kim I wondered that as well. That 50 cents showed on my LES every month too. Where is this mysterious retirement home? Who retires there? Is it in Rhode Island? Do you get a free crock pot?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :D
Thanks Alot Bulk!!!

Veterans Homes are a government-funded institution for the care of military veterans. They are designed to meet the long-term healthcare needs of veterans and lend support to their families.

[Quinbo]

Kinda like the ronald mcdonald house with less hamburgers?

[Beltayn]

I've been thinking about the issue of the cost of chow being automatically taken out of our pay whether we use it or not.
Knowing the way some Marines like to be with their finances, it could actually be a way of insuring that no Marine goes hungry, no matter what. If they gave us the money I know plenty of people that would spend it on beer, lap dances, and new rims for their Mustang that they are in debt for more than they earn in a year for, instead of actually using it to buy chow.

The justification likely is, in the eyes of the Sergeants Major and officers making the policies, that this way at least they never have a situation where a Marine's chain of command finds out one of their Marines hasn't eaten in days because they are broke until next payday.
Its a combat readiness thing. Unfortunately, those of us that are responsible have to deal with the consequences of leaders being forced to treat everyone like the lowest common denominator when managing large numbers of troops.

[HST]

With all due respect to the modern Corps, it seemed to be a lot easier when we lived together in quansets, slept in the old steel doubles, sat side by side with no partitions in the heads and you just got into the chow line and ate

[Wyoming]

With all due respect to the modern Corps, it seemed to be a lot easier when we lived together in quansets, slept in the old steel doubles, sat side by side with no partitions in the heads and you just got into the chow line and ate

Amen, Brother.