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    133rd Forward Support Company competes in Annual Phillip A. Connolly Awards

    Forward Support Company, 133rd Engineer Battalion, Maine Army National Guard competed in the Annual Phillip A. Connolly Awards

    Photo By Master Sgt. Peter Morrison | Spc. Jennifer McKay serves chow during the Phillip A. Connolly award evaluation held...... read more read more

    BRUNSWICK, ME, UNITED STATES

    06.09.2015

    Story by Sgt. 1st Class Peter Morrison 

    121st Public Affairs Detachment

    Soldiers from the Forward Support Company, 133rd Engineer Battalion, Maine Army National Guard competed in the Annual Phillip A. Connolly Awards Program June 8. As part of the competition they had to prepare a meal in a field environment.

    The event meant setting up stations where hands could be washed, a place for soldiers to sign in, meals eaten, utensils washed and a fully functional kitchen present.

    This is the Army’s ultimate cooking competition, which began in 1968 and is one of the few competitions where all Army components, active Army, Reserves, and National Guard, compete against one another. Mess sections from units across the country compete in order find the best Army cooking operations, and this time it was the 133rd who were put on display.

    Retired Army Master Sgt. John Bellissimo, lead judge, was impressed with the teamwork and competence “The Connelly helps in recognizing an often unheralded group of Soldiers and improving support for all troops. It is a challenging competition with a wide array of issues the team must show a mastery of, among them, time and equipment management, production accuracy and logistical organization. You can’t master just one aspect.”

    Staff Sgt. Kirk St. Peter, the first cook for the field feeding section laid out the site plan, organized the meal and coordinated the support said he was happy with the outcome.

    “This allows us to train to a rigorous standard and to challenge our cooks to provide a wholesome, great tasting meal to the Soldier under challenging conditions in the field,” said St Peter. “As Napoleon Bonaparte stated, ‘an Army marches on its stomach.’ Good food keeps the troops’ morale up and it’s our job as cooks to provide that morale boost.”

    “At the end of the day our cooks stepped up to the challenge and knocked it out of the park. All of the comments from the inspectors lead me to believe that we did very well and we have a strong chance of moving on to the national competition,” said St Peter.

    Now the unit will wait to hear from the team of judges to see if they will move on to compete at the national level. “Before we release any results, we still need to sit down as a team of judges and discuss the results of today’s competition,” said Bellissimo “but regardless of where they place St. Peter is leading a strong team providing excellent food service to the Soldiers supported by the 133rd’s Forward Support Company.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 06.09.2015
    Date Posted: 06.12.2015 15:25
    Story ID: 166457
    Location: BRUNSWICK, ME, US
    Hometown: AUGUSTA, ME, US
    Hometown: PORTLAND, ME, US

    Web Views: 80
    Downloads: 0

    PUBLIC DOMAIN