I have never been in the military, but I can imagine that if you’re deployed in another country it can be comforting to have familiar food to look forward to at meal time.

In today’s story, some Army leaders seem to take their soul food night very seriously, and when one important food item is missing, it causes a lot of drama.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

“Check down, not up.”

I was a cook in the Army for a few years in the mid-aughts and had a surprisingly nice deployment to Bagram, Afghanistan.

We would have a soul food night once a week stateside but it was replaced by steak and lobster when we deployed.

Since it had been a while since the last one the Dining Facility(DFac) manager decided it was time to bring back the soul food.

He was off that night and a couple of our other higher leadership were in Qatar or on leave so we had a newly promoted Staff Sergeant(E-6) running the show. He was career Army, took forever to get this promotion, and excited about his progress.

OP wasn’t doing as well in the army.

Meanwhile I had just earned a demotion (E-3to E-2) a couple months prior and was persona non grata

So when I asked him where some of the items he took responsibility for were as we approached open, he was furious.

He gave me a hurried chewing out the ended with, “check down, not up.”

So twenty minutes later when he told me the line was set up and to get out there I did not tell him he forgot one of his items.

There’s a problem.

We open to serve and our Command Sergeant Major (E-9) and his newest guests were already lined up for soul food night.

He requests a bit of this and then and then stops in his tracks.

“Where’s the corn?”

“I’m sorry sarnt major, I am not sure. I swear I saw some getting made.”

“You better have some damn corn, it is my favorite.” (Weird but okay.)

“I can get Sarnt ‘jerkface’ for you.”

“Nope, I’ll get him myself!”

They found the corn.

He proceeded to entire the kitchen and begin asking questions.

The new Staff Sergeant comes hustling out, looks at the line, looks in a warmer, and pulls out a pan of corn on the cob.

I pull one of the extra pans of another item we had out and he slots the corn in.

Then he tries throwing me under the bus with CSM standing there. “Why didn’t you tell me the corn was not out?!”

He had the perfect response.

“Sarnt you just chewed me out for this, you said check down, not up.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Then CSM pulled him over towards the snack bar and laid into him for the next 15-20 minutes.

I had never been happier while on the line.

What a lot of drama over corn!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a comment about OP’s low rank in the military.

This person comments on OP’s use of military jargon that not everyone understands.

This person doesn’t think the Staff Sergeant is going to get promoted again any time soon.

This person was also in Bagram.

Seriously, steak and lobster every week sounds amazing!

They eat well in the military!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.