Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and it sounds like its too much to ask people to waste it at a military mess hall.

That’s why this marine and his cohorts had to teach their commanding officer a lesson- because that food was all but inedible.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

you can march a lance corporal to the chow hall but you can’t make him eat

Was in the marines in 1987, stationed at mcas kaneohe on oahu. Beautiful place to live, horribly expensive to do much of anything off base due to prices.

We lived in a squad bay LITERALLY across the street from the base Burger King. Always been a fan of their product, what can I say.

Our battalion’s chow hall was a 10 minute walk from the barracks I stayed in. The closest barracks to the chow hall was 7-8 minute walk.

He describes the chow hall.

The chow hall was named Anderson hall (named for a navy cross recipient if memory serves) and it was bad, even by 1980’s marine infantry standards.

Think Biloxi Blues chowhall scene style.

All the tables and chairs were broken/lopsided, no condiments, bland, over/undercooked, you get whatever they have, you deal with it, you’re in the infantry, or don’t eat.

Some of you know this feeling.

He shares some chow hall rules.

If you don’t know, if you are in the us military service, chow is part of the compensation you get. they don’t say what, how much or how often, but it’s part of the deal.

if you were not in your area at chowtime and, say, ended up at the airwing chow hall, you (with your chow hall card) could eat there instead.

They won’t turn you down because you are at the wrong chow hall, but they definitely keep track of that.

He preferred to eat at Burger King.

Since the long walk (compared to Burger King) in the hot humid Hawaiian sun to the aforementioned chowhall on my time was not appealing to me, I would go to the BK lounge a couple lunches a week.

Along with lots of other lcpl’s from my unit ( as well as others that “ate” at Anderson hall).

The BK got busy, but they would do their thing and life was as ok as it gets for a lcpl in the marine infantry not out in the field.

The airwing chow hall got a lot of repeat business as well.

The commander didn’t like that so many people were choosing not to eat at Anderson hall.

Apparently the battalion commander through the mess hall officer got wind of this, probably due to the large # of “meals” being “prepared” and not “eaten” on a daily basis.

Also the other chow halls probably were complaining about all the extra meals they had to prepare for irritated marines who “don’t belong” in their decent, well maintained chow hall where there are options and politeness and 2nd’s and edible food.

I can say this with confidence, because orders got issued and everyone who had a chow hall card (and could “eat” for free) was to line up at their respective barracks 3x a day, have a headcount to make sure that nobody was missing, and then marched to the Anderson hall for their “meal”.

Being the good marines that we were, we submitted to this latest assault on common decency with all the grace you would expect from mad infantry grunts.

Many marines still didn’t eat at Anderson hall.

There are several types of unit movements in the marines, route step being one. Route step is a very casual unit march where you can be casual about the movement, talking is permitted, etc.

Day 1 we went to the chow hall route step.

Complaining all the way there until we were dismissed from formation to go “eat.”

Once dismissed, fully 2/3 of us walked away without setting a foot in the chow hall. Repeat several times a day for several days.

It got even worse…

The poor nco who would be forced to route step us down there got so tired of the complaining about bad chow (and life in the infantry in general).

We ended up marching to the chow hall (imagine movie/parade unit movement everyone in step, facing forward, looking good and most definitely no complaining) to make his life just a little less worse for having drawn the short straw and assigned this task.

Initially, if we were “off” on the weekend, we wouldn’t have to march to the chow hall.

This lasted 1 weekend.

2nd weekend, if you were found in the barracks at chow time, in formation and off to chow you went. Most marines were never slow on the uptake and were scarce if in the area on the weekend during certain times.

Someone finally asked an important question…

Finally, the lightbulb turned on and someone came up with the idea of asking why we didn’t want to eat at the chow hall.

What a day, given permission to complain about your bad conditions, with theoretically no repercussions.

At first it was the platoon sergeant, with an informal complaint session.

Complaining completed, he took his results to the platoon commander, who apparently didn’t believe the 15 year veteran infantryman, so then a platoon meeting was called with the platoon commander (1st Lt) in charge.

They had to repeat the same complaints to multiple people.

The tone and language definitely changed, but the complaining came fast, furious, and amazingly politely to the LT.

He reports this to the Captain, who holds a company meeting , rinse and repeat.

Still not good enough, a major from battalion has to come down and hear the exact same thing (although much more politely) he has been told 3 times already.

After our little chat with this major, the forced marching to the chow hall stopped, and all was quiet over the weekend.

Things changed at Anderson hall.

Come Monday morning, the chow hall officer and the senior enlisted “chef” were mysteriously reassigned, replaced by the next punching bags assigned to lovely Anderson hall.

We were also told that airwing chow halls were off limits to the unwashed grunts.

It got a lot “better” but never good.

I would like to think that the major or the colonel went to Anderson hall and sampled the wares, but that would be asking too much.

It was better but not the best.

Things were definitely edible after the culling, but never airwing good.

Someone messed up on several occasions and I ended up on the pearl harbor navy base and ate like a king comparatively.

I think that this is the only time in my military career that complaining about something bad and needing a change actually had a positive impact.

It’s great that the food improved, but it’s unfortunate that the food at all the chow halls isn’t equal.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader’s dad liked the army’s food.

Another reader shared an update about the Army.

This reader thinks the Air Force is the superior branch of the military.

Another person is going to talk to his mom about this story.

This reader doesn’t think anything malicious happened.

At least the food was free.

Sometimes that’s not enough, though.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.