“Fort McCoy dining” raw meat, dirty hands, rats and bugs.. yumm
Posted on 19. Jan, 2009 by Jesse in News & Politics, Pre Deployment, Random Ramblings 884 views
I have been a member of the Wisconsin National Guard since 2002 and have had the “honor” of enjoying the dining facilities as well as field chow at Ft McCoy more times than I can remember, or care to admit. In my normal daily venture through the news today I stumbled on a story that I personally found very interesting and not the least bit surprising. It seems, according to testimony that became public recently, when food was served there it often included bugs and the workers contracted to provide it did not always follow basic sanitation requirements.
Of course each party involved in this mess has someone else to blame, according to the Army, fault falls on the State of Wisconsin for improperly managing the account, the State of Wisconsin claims it is the contractors fault and of course the contractor stated that it is the fault of Ft McCoy for providing sub-standard facilities. I will admit that the dining facilities as well as many of the barracks are shoddy and very run down but they are getting better, slowly. Being Infantry, we didn’t stay in the barracks more than a few days a year anyhow, so I didn’t really care how crappy they were. When we got to use them it was a welcome improvement from sleeping on the ground at our training area.
This recent release of information was made public when records related to a federal lawsuit filed by Wisconsin asking a judge to dismiss a $225,000 arbitration ruling in favor of Janet Dickey, a manager for food service contractor Blackstone Consulting Inc. Fort McCoy spokeswoman Linda Fournier stated “it was the poor quality of the food, not the outdated buildings, that caused complaints and that food service has improved under the current contractor, the Army has spent $14 million upgrading older dining facilities in the last two years as well.”
Often times in my experiences there the food was poorly prepared, late or just didn’t arrive and apparently this was commonplace in 2005-2006. Records pertaining to this case showed that many soldiers went to classes or training on empty stomachs or late due to poor coordination by the food service contractor.
Insects and rodents were also listed as commonplace in the reports due primarily to the poor facility conditions, with only 2 out of 16 dining facilities having air conditioning. This lack of air conditioning led to doors being left open in the summer months to try to keep the buildings comfortable and in the process allowing easy access to insects and rodents which ultimately were reported to end up in or on the food on occasion. (I can personally attest to this)
Thankfully the contract is now with a different company and according to recent reports by inspectors the problems at Fort McCoy have been rectified. I am sure anyone who spent as much time there as I did, or the thousands who spent more time there won’t find this information surprising, but will be glad that things are improving there.
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Mominator
21. Jan, 2009
Great article… well… interesting is what I mean because there is nothing great about soldiers having to deal with sub-standard conditions like that. How are they expected to perform their best when treated like that? Glad to hear they are trying to improve things though!