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File: aacad_05.txtArmy. We begged CENTAF to send us centracting help and they sent someone from another site but it was eight hours away and getting to a phone to follow up was a chore in itself. It was very frustrating having no TV/VCR for entertainment, pillows, ice chests for SR, vehicles etc...when every other place in theater had more than their fair share. After I made an initial visit to King Fahd, I was in shock at the things they had ....we were definitely the step-children of Centaf. They had large screen TVs, VCRs in every work tent, mattresses stereos, weights, desks, linoleum, ice cream machines, Honda rentals, Suburbans, asphalt roads etc... it was another world. We lost two months time by the time we started getting orders in, morale at our site was the worst in theater, and understandably why. C. Obtaining A-rations at our location was next to impossible. We struck it lucky for Xmas, Centaf sent our dinner by truck. It took us three days to prepare it on the MKTs, but it was well worth it..we even snagged some near beers from the Army contractor in the area. The Army contractor was our first shot in the dark. We asked, begged, pleaded with the Army to order us meats and vegetables but we didn't get our first shipment until after the war, a little late. The Army had a huge warehouse open up in February. We were able to get canned food, MREs and soda from them throughout our stay...the Army gave us a slight variety but we were last on their list for A rations and obviously never got them. Centaf was another strike they couldn't or wouldn't help us at all...thus we had an irate Wing Commander that was on our case for months, he even tried for us a Centaf but we were to remote for them to help us. We were exempt from going Mess Attendant contract because the Wing Commander believed the labor (foreign nationals) were to great a security risk for site. After the war, Saudi Catering contracted food to us by bumping off King Fahd's contract and then we negotiated our own contract to have the dining hall contracted for remaining tent city personnel (the planes were long gone) thus Saudi Catering moved in and we left one week later. It was the break we needed to get out of that. place. Lessons Learned - Find your own contractor and work it after the fact - The quickest way for us to get A-rations was to look at other operationsand copy them, thus a King Fahd visit, and bumping off their contract. We waiting too long for the Army to meet their promises and relied too much on headquarters to help us. The thing to do is hit a large city with a contractor in it that will deliver to your area and call your nearest AF Contracting office. Doing the leg work for contracting saves them time in a war scenario only and speeds up delivery of that food. - Put CES in charge of the water- We did not have the manning nor the time to hand water bottles out to every person on base. We were also stuck with picking it up, storing it, cleaning up busted pallets after a rain storm and keeping inventory. Water is a civil engineering responsibility. We made the mistake of picking up two pallets in the beginning days and thus bore the responsibility forever. They had folks sitting around in their
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