Flying combat missions off an aircraft carrier, I ate quite well in the officer’s wardroom, and probably better than I did at home. Three fine meals a day unless you were flying during one of the meal periods and missed it. We also had ‘midrats’ (Midnight rations) around midnight which was more like fast food including sliders.
However, I never ate anything while actually flying a combat mission. Way too busy! Hard to eat wearing an oxygen mask and while being shot at too.
We had two officer wardrooms onboard, one more formal than the other. I most always ate in the less formal, ‘dirty shirt’ wardroom where I could wear my flight suit instead of changing into the “uniform of the day.” Unlike the other wardroom where they had table service, the dirty-shirt one was cafeteria style, but still excellent food.
[The shirts worn were not really “dirty”. This was just a clever nickname for the other mess where you could eat in a working uniform without having to change into the uniform of the day as in the other wardroom.]
Here is an image of a dirty-shirt wardroom:
| Credit: Quora |
Here is the other wardroom where one had to wear the uniform of the day, with Alex Trebek as a guest aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (and obviously not in the uniform of the day.).
Source: John Chesire (Quora)
