Photo By Sgt. Lindsey Schulte | All cooks must wash their hands before they return to the kitchen and between...... read more read more
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TOLEDO, Ohio - Soldiers march on their stomachs, and on June 8 they marched towards the 983rd Forward Support Command. The unit won the right to represent the 416th Theater Engineering Company in the Army Reserve's Philip A. Connelly Competition.
“There’s a lot of little things that make this thing operate so everybody has a role to play,” said Warrant Officer 2 Elemer M. Brewer, the competition evaluator. Brewer has competed in the Connelly himself.
It takes everyone at the top of their game in order to earn all of the 1,000 points on the evaluation.
It takes Pfc. Katherine Scott, in her role as water sanitation specialist, catching the high contaminate levels in the potable water container. Then Scott rightly followed protocol to drain a portion of it, add clean water to it and mix together before retesting and ensuring the water used for cooking and cleaning of dishes for the soldier's meal is safe.
Water sanitation’s main job is to prevent dysentery, said Dennis A. Snay, Scott’s partner in water sanitation.
In order to win it takes soldiers to wash dishes and guard weapons to maximize efficiency in security while cooks do their job in the cramped kitchen.
It takes Cpl. Leann Cantrell rising to the challenge of creating an award winning strawberry short cake, even though she has never made the dish before. She excelled without issue and earns the compliments of Command Sgt. Maj. Of the 372nd Engineer Brigade Knute K. Weick, who attended the competition.
“The strawberry short cake had good flavor,” said Weick later that day.
It takes a logistics scavenger like Staff Sgt. Eric Lenard to get this team everything it needed to win this competition including the flag declaring the 983rd was there to serve on the mock Forward Operating Base affectionately coined FOB Raccoon.
“Raccoons like to scrounge and survive and that’s what our company is. We scrounge and survive and come out where we need to be,” said Lenard.
It takes skillful raccoons like Pfc. Benjamin Gallozarodriguez, who has worked and competed in civilian culinary arts jobs and competitions. He labored an hour morphing app into swans and oranges into a fruit basket to add a touch of presentation which can boost morale in any chow hall.
It takes leaders like Staff Sgt. Thomas Kuhn, of the unit's food operations manager, to train his cooks well enough and then to stay out of their way and let them win.
“The unit’s moral is high here and he makes sure they get the training they need,” complimented Sgt. 1st Class Annette Coates about Kuhn.
| Date Taken: | 06.09.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 06.21.2013 00:48 |
| Story ID: | 109010 |
| Location: | TOLEDO, OHIO, US |
| Web Views: | 121 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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