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    Competing for Best Field Kitchen

    Competing for Best Field Kitchen

    Photo By Staff Sgt. Susan Wilt | Pfc. Johnny Cabella, a sanitation specialist from 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd...... read more read more

    FORT BRAGG, NC, UNITED STATES

    07.29.2008

    Story by Sgt. Susan Wilt 

    82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs Office

    By Sgt. Susan Wilt
    2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne

    FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Oftentimes if a paratrooper is cooking in the field, it means he's tearing open a Meal Ready to Eat and using the heating pouch that's inside to warm up his shrimp jambalaya. However, when paratroopers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Consolidated Field Team cook in the field, things get a little more elaborate.

    During the 41st Philip A. Connelly Competition, where Army units compete for the best field kitchen and dining facility, the CFT spent three weeks setting up an intricate kitchen that was big enough to cook and serve several three-course hot meals to a hundred hungry paratroopers. The kitchen was judged the best field kitchen at the U.S. Army Forces Command level, July 29, 2008.

    "We're not looking for normal," said Sgt. Maj. Randy St. Cyr, the FORSCOM food service sergeant major and one of the judges of the competition. "We're looking for above and beyond."

    For the competition, the field team built their kitchen around a scenario where they were based on a remote Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan and had to feed a hundred paratroopers, said Sgt. 1st Class Steve Minardi, the 2nd BCT food service noncommissioned officer in charge.

    From there they were evaluated on a breakfast and lunch as well as site lay out, food preparation and service, equipment operations, and command emphasis.

    To make the field kitchen happen, members of the CFT have to take on different roles that are each vital to the outcome of the competition.

    There's a team that works inside the mobile kitchen trailer, where temperatures can soar to over 150 degrees during the summer months. Here the team cooks and prepares the food.

    In order for the MKT team to receive the food, the paratrooper who's in charge of rations has to deliver it to them. This paratrooper receives the food when it is dropped off to the FOB. He then divides it up into rations and brings it to the MKT. He is also in charge of setting up food that isn't cooked such as drinks, packaged snacks, and fruits and vegetables, explained Staff Sgt. Rick Mendoza, a member of the 2nd BCT CFT.

    The sanitation crew is also crucial to the success of the team. There are certain guidelines that the crew must follow in terms of distances between stations for cleanliness purposes, Mendoza said.

    Inside the sanitation center there are very precise water temperatures that the team follows when washing dishes.

    They also keep a close eye on the amount of chlorine that's in the dishwater, said Pfc. Juin L. Hughes, a sanitation specialist from the 2nd BCT CFT.

    Due to their outstanding performance the Paratroopers were selected to move on and represent FORSCOM in the Department of the Army level of the competition, which takes place in December.

    St. Cyr said that the field team did an excellent job with the competition.

    "They volunteered to do extra and go above and beyond what normal Army units are doing," St. Cyr said of the 2nd BCT cooks. "They're highly motivated considering the fact that they just got back from a 15 month deployment...Fort Bragg has some of the best food service soldiers in the Army."

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 07.29.2008
    Date Posted: 08.05.2008 06:45
    Story ID: 22127
    Location: FORT BRAGG, NC, US

    Web Views: 152
    Downloads: 110

    PUBLIC DOMAIN