OT: Former Navy SEAL walk-on DL at Nebraska

[neteng]

Ugh. Rail loading detail is one of the worst details to be on. Only thing worse was KP. MREs have come a long way since when I first joined. Some are actually really good.

 

[BMF]

I dont think there is such a thing as 'Army Food' at the moment. We are coming off years of 'occupational warfare' so Army food for me was either MRE's if I was outside the wire, elaborate chowhalls contracted out that had great food (one of my deployments, there was a waffle bar, taco station and other stuff like that ... oh, a desert bar!!!) or fast food joints from taco bell to TGIFs run by 3rd world nationals flown in.

Oh ... and on subject, whenever I spent some time at the SOP compounds ... I ate good. They have chefs feeding them. Your tax dollars :)

I deployed in 2005/2006 (9+months) w/ a Naval Coastal Warfare squadron. Spent most of my time in Kuwait, at Kuwait Naval Base (KNB) - spent a few weeks each in Iraq, Bahrain, Dubai/UAE, and Qatar. We were a port security/anti-terrorism unit. Anyhow, the "DFAC" (Dining Facility for the civilians here) was actually pretty good. Great fresh fruit, desert stations, taco bars, deli sandwich bar, hot food, salad bar, etc. For us, sneaking over to Camp Arifjan was a treat, as it was much better than KNB.

In my younger life I was a Navy Corpsman, went through A-school in San Diego and C-school at Camp Pendleton. When I was in SD, I met a lot of the younger/new SEAL's and most of them were around my size (5'11 175-ish - I was actually closer to 165 back in 1989-90 though). Later in my career, I met many veteran SEAL's and a lot of those guys were big - several years of lifting and getting older. There was a LCDR that was the XO of one of our boat units in Kuwait that was 6'2 245+ (he was hilarious, treated the Navy Captain with complete disrespect, he smoked, and always had a bad attitude). I told him one day I needed to give him a quick brief (that he purposely skipped) and he looks at me and says, "Negative!" and walked away. I was an O2 at the time, so I just laughed and told my boss he got the brief.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Donkey may be right about other services evaluation of Air Force Special Ops. However, the training and operational environment the PJs work in is every bit as demanding as Rangers, Delta, and the SEALs. Combat SAR crews never have to buy drinks in any O Club Bar. "That others might live" is more than a motto, its the job. Combat controllers train and go where the SpecOPs train and go. Just sayin'.

Grunts always take care of their docs. Hell, even Marines are smart enough to do that.

I have a buddy that left Army SF after over 20 years (some reserve time in there) and is in AF PJ now. He loves it. Says they can take basically any training course he wants. They fly him in for weekend mutas. It was a little silly though. He was an Army surgical PA but they made him go through an AF paramedic course and take nremt.

But we still talk smack bc smack talkin is what we do.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

. MREs have come a long way since when I first joined. Some are actually really good.

Are you long enough in the tooth to remember the dehydrated meat patties and fruit bars?

At least they were lightweight.

 

[neteng]

Yes. We ate fruit without adding any water. It was something I routinely traded for. The omellete bag was the kiss of death. Though it had the highly coveted cheese pouch within it, its not something you eat alone so you had to trade it for something crappy.

 

[NavetG8r]

How would you rate Army food in relation to ALPO?

That's Navy chow. I worked in the mess decks as master at arms for a while. I saw meat packaged with labels "Warning, for animal consumption & military use only"...

 

[Detroitgator]

When we finally got to a base with showers, they weren't heated and always out of hot water and the drains would be clogged and they would have about 6-8 inches of filthy soapy nasty water in them with disposable razors floating everywhere. No thanks. Cow troughs were much better. We only had C rations then, not these fancy MREs they have today. Had to scrape nasty grease off the top of the meals to get to the wonderful food inside. One good thing though was in the belly of my M-88 recovery vehicle there was a huge empty space under the floor with access panels. We mounted a few Jerry can brackets under there and would strap in half gallons of Jim Beam in the brackets and stack cases of beer in there too. We had to rail load the tanks to the field and back and we drove our company thru several little German towns while drinking beer and raising hell. Could have gotten in a lot of trouble but I guess we really didn't care much. Had some good times.

Where in Germany? I was in Fulda from 85-89

 

[gatormandan]

Kirch goens. Otherwise known as "The Rock". North of Frankfurt. 1976-78

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Kirch goens. Otherwise known as "The Rock". North of Frankfurt. 1976-78

You didn't by chance drive an RV into Czechoslovakia, did you?

 

[Gatordiddy]

You didn't by chance drive an RV into Czechoslovakia, did you?

C'mon, it's Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick 'em up, we zip right out again. We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia. It's like we're going into *Wisconsin*.

 

[Musclepug]

 

[gatormandan]

You didn't by chance drive an RV into Czechoslovakia, did you?

Funny thing. We were out driving one day and came across a road sign that was laying over some and snow was covering up what it said. We stopped and brushed it off and it said "US forces halt. You are one Kilometer from the Czeck border do not proceed." We did a u turn.

 

[Gatordiddy]

Funny thing. We were out driving one day and came across a road sign that was laying over some and snow was covering up what it said. We stopped and brushed it off and it said "US forces halt. You are one Kilometer from the Czeck border do not proceed." We did a u turn.

Pussy

 

[gatormandan]

Yup.

 

[Homer J]

Ive never seen a large Ranger. Hell it seemed like everyone lost 30 pounds in Ranger school. Most guys came out 160 lbs no matrer their starting weight. 1200 cals at best doesnt work for a 200 pound beast no matter if you have almost no body fat or not.

Maybe things have changed.

come out lookin like a refugee

 

[Homer J]

ultibranch operations. SOP is speci

Net is Air Force right? Special Operations Personnel?

Btw, no one but Air Force thinks anyone in the Air Force is special operations.

JSOC thinks rangers are special ops.

Air Force is a good joke but they do have special people.

Para Rescue and Combat controllers

I worked with guys from combat controllers, with two combat jumps (Granada & Panama). The same guy was in Vietnam, part of the achilly lauro rescue and Desert One.

 

[Homer J]

Things have really changed these days. I operated this 56 ton tank recovery vehicle and would spend 70 days at a time in the field while my tank company would do maneuvers and spent many of nights at the tank firing range about 100 feet behind the firing line with no hearing protection ever issued and on nice nights I would put my sleeping bag on the front blade and sleep under the stars. In the winter (Germany) we froze our asses off and seldom took showers. We would find cow watering troughs in farmers pastures and bathe in those. Ahh, the good ole days...

DAT :)

 

[gatormandan]

DAT :)

63C10 Mechanic.