When I was drafted into the army in 1965, my first meal was breakfast in the Fort Polk reception center mess hall. I was trying to keep an open mind about food expectations, but it was still a shock.
They had us standing in line breathing greasy smelling air about 3:30 am, and they were calling us four at a time through the door. The chef pointed his spatula at each of us and politely asked, gentlemen how would you like your eggs this morning? He was smiling while he patiently took our orders, then he took a mixing bowl full of eggs and poured it onto a grill that must have been about 500 degrees. The yokes were moving around as he whacked'em with the spatula, flipped and scraped them up.
They were scorched browned crispy on the outside while raw with runny whites on the inside.
That was my first impression, of course it was a little better quality after I was in a regular unit in Germany, but not by very much as the cooks prepared their own meals in small quantities and didn't eat
eat what we did.
The only military food that was really that I tasted was in a NATO base in Bremerhaven, Germany that had soldiers, sailors, and airmen from the U.S. and all of the other NATO countries, and a Canadian army mess hall in France was very good with a buffet lunch serving several entrees.
