Camp Kinser Chow Hall - Okinawa, Japan 1991

Life in a Marine Corps Chow Hall overseas in Okinawa, Japan. The commute to work for most was a walk across the street from the barracks. We made the best of it, but most of us didn't want to be doing that job. Some were volunteers, but most were volunteered.

0:00 Tour of the storeroom
2:31 The loading dock
2:57 Inside the galley
5:54 Behind the line
7:42 The bakery
8:49 The express / fast food line
9:30 The mess deck
10:18 Back in the galley
11:30 Beer storage
12:15 back to the fast food galley
13:46 nearing the end of a shift
14:47 me doing a selfie video for mom & dad
17:10 Typhoon Caitlin forecast

My Marine Corps buddies in the video are listed below. There are some more names that I can't remember since this was 33 years ago. I was only 20 years old at the time.

Clint Smith
Mark Stopani
George Tinsley
Jon Ellefson
Juan Pagan
Phelps

Notable buzzwords:
1. "Stay Marine" - The Marine Corps always pushed everyone to "Stay Marine" (in other words, reenlist and stay in), so we used it sarcastically because we were usually miserable
2. "Day on stay on" - when we're short staffed or you got in trouble they make you work every day until they get sick of seeing your face.
3. "30 day slave" - most enlisted personnel had to put time in at a chow hall somewhere early in their career. They would have to serve out a 30 day sentence before being replaced by someone else. This was needed to keep the operation going, so units from all around the base get cannibalized to help out. These "volunteers" get the dirty jobs like scrubbing pots and pans in the pot shack, dishes in the scullery, and dealing with all the food slop that went to the local pig farmers. It was misery for most.

Stay until the end and you'll see what a typical typhoon forecast looks like on FEN. FEN was joint military broadcasting called Far East Network, but we called it the Forced Entertainment Network because that was our only option. Due to Typhoon Caitlin, reservoir levels in Okinawa on the island rose from only 35% to over 80% of its capacity and crop damage amounted to $7.4 million USD. In the typhoon's path, 26 people died, 64 homes were destroyed and around 30 ships were damaged or destroyed.