by Harry Francis

Created on: May 22, 2008

This is a very good topic that as I read has brought up some very old memories for me and just reading a couple of paragraphs from both sides has settled some questions in my mind on subjects that have always stirred up debates within myself. However I feel quite compelled to state that I have to agree that military service is the best option for several different reasons which could and have filled volumes of books on the subject.

My career began at the age of thirteen, I was obsessed with wanting to be a chef and everyday in the kitchen culling vegetables made the feeling that much stronger. When I finally decided that I needed to go into the military to get the education I needed to become a chef I found that it was much more than just cooking, it was teamwork to the tenth power and beyond. In the restaurant I had worked in everybody did their own thing even when it was time to go home. If you were on mop duty that day or night, you mopped the floor and others would stand around and watch while you struggled. What made my decision to go into the military was my patriotic side which my father strongly protested, he was a veteran of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, he had very strong views about the military and in no uncertain terms told me that I would never make it. He said he was proud that I wanted to do it but, he feared for me because Vietnam was still going on and he said that I wasn't the kind that liked to take orders.
The other mitigating factors were the fact that I had quit school to work, yes I loved it that much, and still do, and my boss told me that if I went back to school and graduated he would pay for me to go to the premier chef school in the nation all I had to do was work for him after I graduated for five years after that I was free to do whatever, I never mad it to the school, I went straight to the army recruiter.
What I found in the infantry was a camaraderie that I hadn't experienced in civilian life, I missed my friends at home but after my first two week leave I realized that I no longer had anything in common with them, nor did I want anything from them. In the unit that I was assigned to I found people from all walks of life that would help me if I was struggling and expected the same from me if they were struggling. When I transfered into the kitchen I found that I was a valuable part of a team also. And nobody that I had worked with in the civilian world kitchen had ever prepared for, cooked and served 850 people two meats,

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