Times UK: Army Food

I am somewhat surprised that so many in uniform have issues with the decision.  Perhaps just another indication of the sense of entitlement rampant in today's society.  Schuehle

Times (UK):  Army food: the battle of the bulge

Tom Coghlan and Jerome Starkey in Kabul

March 31, 2010

It was visions of Ambrosia that sustained the Spartans, while GIs in the Vietnam War imagined the culinary and sensual pleasures of Saigon. For the troops fighting in the Helmand desert, fantasies tend to focus on chilled milkshakes and Double Whoppers served up on a neon-lit strip of Kandahar airbase known as “The Boardwalk”.

Or they did until yesterday, when the famously ascetic commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, ordered that the Boardwalk — an ever-expanding cluster of fast-food joints at the sprawling airbase — be closed.

The feelings of General McChrystal, an intense, workaholic “warrior monk” who runs eight miles a day, sleeps four hours a night and eats only one meal every 24 hours, were made clear.

“This is a war zone, not an amusement park,” growled his Command Sergeant-Major, Michael T. Hall, on a military blog.

Among the outlets to be sent home are such cultural icons as Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway and TGI Friday’s, the newly opened branch of which features a plastic scale model of the Star Wars character Yoda. US pilots were apparently in the habit of radioing ahead for pizza delivery when returning from bombing missions over Helmand.

Where the armed forces of America have gone during the War on Terror, the deep-fat fryers of America’s fast-food franchises have trailed doggedly in their wake. But the cultural variations inevitable in a 38-country multinational force are rarely more divisive than on matters culinary. A brief tour of the rations delivered to different Nato nations is instructive.

US forces survive on Meals Ready to Eat, shortened to the acronym MRE. They consist of sealed bags heated by flameless chemical heaters so that no flame is visible to enemy forces. The resulting “meals”, such as “country captain chicken” and “chicken breast — chunked and formed” are little loved but deliver a carefully balanced diet for the fighting man. As a nuclear option the American soldier carries the “first strike ration”, a ready-to-eat, lightweight 2,900 calories that promises to sustain soldiers through “multiple highly intense combat assaults”.

By contrast, French forces go into combat carrying elegant metal tins containing a selection of the dishes that define France’s rich culinary heritage: veau Marengo (named after the great battle won by Napoleon in 1800), navarin d’agneau, salmon terrine and duck mousse, to name a few.

The Italians get wine with their pasta. The British “rat packs” include lamb curry, all-day breakfast and lots of teabags. Often the different nationalities find some variety by swapping their rations for those of another nation. But sometimes food — and, in particular, drink — is a source of deep division.

American commanders have long taken an extremely dim view of the supply of alcohol on bases — it is strictly forbidden for US troops even in safe areas. The British base in Kabul has a loosely applied two-can rule but in Helmand booze is banned, and there have been crackdowns on attempts to send alcoholic drinks through the post to soldiers..

Among the liberal Scandinavians there is a more relaxed attitude. The Norwegians in the north of the country built a club called the MiG Down Bar, serving spirits and beer, in which the 30ft-long bar was the salvaged wing of a Soviet-era MiG-25 bomber.

The kings of debauchery are the Germans, at whose camp in northern Afghanistan 1.7 million pints of beer were consumed last year, according to a German parliamentary report.

One Western journalist returned from the Italian base in Herat, western Afghanistan, with a lurid tale of a wine-fuelled late-night conga with Italian forces round an aircraft hangar while sober American troops looked on aghast — and no doubt a little jealous.

During the First World War the head of the US Food Administration, J. Edgar Hoover, encouraged the American public to give up meat so that troops at the front could have more — a programme known as “Hooverizing”. A century on, a very different food strategy to win the war has “McChrystallised”.