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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/bills0341 on 2024-05-03 01:09:15.
it's long, and lots of military jargon, apologies.
reading another story (https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/comments/1ci9zw4/rewrite\_your\_prices\_to\_gouge\_money\_from\_students/) made me think of this from years gone by.
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. the chow hall was named anderson hall ( named for a navy cross recipient if memory serves)and it was a shithole, 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 screw you deal with it, you're in the infantry. or don't eat.
some of you know this feeling.
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
since the long walk ( compared to burger king) in the hot humid hawaiian sun to the aforementioned shithole 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.
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 bitching 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 pissed off infantry grunts.
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
bitch, bitch, bitch 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.
the poor nco who would be forced to route step us down there got so tired of the bitching 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 bitching) 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
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 bitch about your shitty conditions, with theoretically no repercussions.
at first it was the platoon sergeant, with an informal bitch session. bitching 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. the tone and language definitely changed, but the bitching 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, major buffnuts 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 major buffnuts, the force marching to the chow hall stopped, and all was quiet over the weekend.
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 major buffnuts or the colonel went to anderson hall and sampled the wares, but that would be asking too much. things were definitely edible after the culling, but never airwing good. someone fucked 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 bitching about something bad and needing a change actually had a positive impact.