Consumption of Food at COT

Dining procedures

Are ridiculous.

I explained the process for getting the food but here’s how we get to eating it. And I use “eating “ lightly because it’s closer to inhaling.

These are referred to as "tight meals"

Get your tray, walk to the right side of the building. A staff member directs you to which table you should sit at. You have to walk down the aisle to the right of that table. All of them are 4-person tables that are diagonal to the direction you’re walking. Person 1 sits in the far left spot, person 2 the far right, person 3 the close left, person four the close right. Everyone arrives and puts their tray down, then stands at attention until person 4 arrives and says “be seated”. And everyone sits. IF person 4 takes too long to arrive then person 3 can say “be seated” and the table is “closed” the next person has to sit at the next table. Then positions 1 and 4 take napkins and hand them to their right to positions 3 and 2. Everyone gives a few seconds for whoever wants to pray to do so, and then you start eating as fast as you possibly can. No talking. No looking around. No smiling. Feet are on the floor, at 45 degrees. You are sitting up straight. Shovel, shovel, shovel. But not too fast, because you don’t want to finish too early and be sitting there awkwardly while everyone else does…but fast enough that you’re not too far behind everyone and be sitting there shoveling food while everyone is waiting for you. If your whole table isn't fast enough and the table that sat down after you leaves while you're still not done, you will probably get yelled at for "holding up the air force" or something. 

Then once everyone is done and puts their napkin in their plate, positions 2 and 3 pass everything on their trays to positions 1 and 4, and then stack the trays. Everyone stands up, comes to attention, and position 1 leaves. 4 picks up the tray, 3 picks up the napkin holder and 2 wipes down the table and puts the napkin in 4’s tray and everyone leaves, once again walking down the right aisle and over to the tray carts and then outside. You line up outside and once 4 people arrive you have a “detail” and you can march around the corner to where each flight lines up to march back to their flight rooms before heading back to class or back to the dorms if that was dinner.

We ate every meal like that for the first 2 weeks. Week 3 we got “phase 2” privileges which allowed us to talk at dinner, and this past week we got phase 3 privileges and that allows us to talk at all meals. We also started looking around and discovering ice cream machines and rotating circles of cake and a counter with condiments on it and all sorts of things we were too scared to look at before, because an angry captain might yell at us and give us a demerit. :-P

It sounds not-that-hard to do but it is surprisingly difficult to figure out which position is 1 because of the way the tables are turned. It wouldn’t be that bad except the pressure is ON when the drill sergeants are hovering over watching your every move.

They don’t really yell at us any more but those first few days were cray-zee!