$14 footlongs are the norm at Miramar, too. That’s just inflation, fam.
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Are Naval aviators really away from home more than Air Force pilots?
- Thread starter Clustered4985
- Start date
For sure; but just emphasizing for the pain factor, especially for the junior enlisted dudes who are often too pressed for time to hit the galley.
Pendleton, by comparison, had not one but two quick sandwich places on/near the flightline that were covered with a meal card. Huge asset with a relatively small footprint.
Food on base is, unfortunately, a complicated thing. All the concessions, like Subway and other food court offerings are privately owned franchises contracted under NEXCOM. Installation leadership has no control over anything that NEXCOM does, and there are non-compete rules about MWR/N9 programs. The NEX isn't incentivized to be responsive to the needs of our Sailors - they just care about their bottom line. Galleys fall under the Installation, and I've seen some creative ideas like Roach Coach/Food Truck concept work on some larger bases.
Here at PMRF, we have a very small military footprint... only about 90 Sailors. No galley, no Commissary, a very small Exchange. We do have a Subway open for lunch during the work week, and an MWR restaurant open Tues-Sat. Bottom line, very few food options on base and no real pathways to change that. On the plus side, our Unaccompanied Housing for junior Sailors is apartment style with full kitchens, so people have to learn some life skills figure out how to shop and cook and meal prep.
Here at PMRF, we have a very small military footprint... only about 90 Sailors. No galley, no Commissary, a very small Exchange. We do have a Subway open for lunch during the work week, and an MWR restaurant open Tues-Sat. Bottom line, very few food options on base and no real pathways to change that. On the plus side, our Unaccompanied Housing for junior Sailors is apartment style with full kitchens, so people have to learn some life skills figure out how to shop and cook and meal prep.
Most of the AF bases seem to have the same basic Exchange and Commissary. All really good. In the last year, I have been to Nellis, Whiteman, Hickam, and Edwards. Still need to visit our units at Barksdale, Dyess and DM at a minimum. Plus homeported at Eglin.
There's a food truck (though I think it is defunct) on Dam Neck called the Fleatery.. the longer you look at the name, the worse it gets
Having been stationed at Miramar before being stationed at Lemoore, I'd say let's never compare or conflate the two ever again.
Lemoore is the worst place I've ever been. I said what I said.
Agree with the NEXCOM info but don’t let them roll you. If you threaten their bottom line when they don’t support sailors, they get in line. They also don’t like their sloppiness aired in front of URL senior officers, so elevate the “barriers”.
Flag officers have discretionary funds (Usually RDTE and OPN) with which to purchase and sponsor pet projects. Not sure how much CNAF would have "personally" but there are ways that flag officers can directly contribute to CNIC/NAVFAC projects.
NEXCOM is under NAVSUP so there are ways to get them in line, especially if you can convince the your friendly neighborhood admiral to reach out to the leadership at NAVSUP.
That might work on the mainland, but not way out here. NEXCOM can't force a vendor to open up shop here. 90 Sailors doesn't move the needle on anyone's bottom line, and you can't honestly justify things like uniform shop, tailor, dry cleaner, etc. There isn't even a dry cleaner on the island of Kauai. We're lucky to have a barber 3 days per week. As a result, we do a lot of business with the NEX/MCEX on Oahu. It's an adjustment, but ultimately not a significant hardship.
Price of living in paradise. 🤙🌺
It's not just dining facilities. Having the HVAC go out in the squadron and being told "you're 132nd in line, so you'll get fixed in approximately 3 years" is outrageous. We at least got an emergency work order for our PR shop showing the temperature extremes there violated something or other instruction that put our CADs at risk of exploding IIRC. Bottom line: I'd love to learn about how NAVFAC is budgeted/resourced because from a customer's perspective, it feels like they aren't at all. Base infrastructure in many of our fleet concentration areas is crumbling.
Welcome to 20 years of robbing our shore enterprise accounts to pay for every other high priority thing the Navy does. It is getting better (slowly), but we're digging out from 20 years of neglect and backlog. CNO has now made CNIC a TYCOM, which comes with some leverage for resources, and soon Public works will be put under Base COs instead of NAVFAC. All of that said, in general, our hangars are in pretty bad shape enterprise-wide, and they're expensive AF to build. Wanna make them ICD-750 compliant so you can have a SAPF or SCIF? That'll be another $200M, please.
BL: We still aren't being resourced for what our nation asks of it's Navy. Until that changes, this kind of thing will continue to pose challenges to everyone wearing a uniform.
Yeah, my last wing had a shared SCIF which I didn't really mind, but basics like heating (and maybe air conditioning) shouldn't be too much to ask. To top it off, during an inspection we found our LSs had a bucket to collect water coming from the ceiling... which we immediately realized was black water directly from an upstairs head. The fact is our maintainers had just come to expect it as the norm and didn't even report it, which is the real sadness there IMO. Topping it all off, our hangar fire suppression system was simultaneously not expected to work in automatic mode and for a while, was susceptible to blow on its own at anytime, which forced us by higher authority to maintain a watch during all after hours and weekends to make sure the hangar didn't catch fire nor fill up with AFFF. Of course the answer is just "throw manpower at it." Incredibly frustrating. I do hope the reforms you speak of do help things. Our bases are in horrible condition as far as I can tell.
I hear you there. For perspective, some of our AC casualties here had major component lead times over 70 weeks. We've connected those flight line AC carts to buildings here as a stop-gap measure when necessary. We're at the end of the supply chain here.
Hangar fire suppression is another matter. The Navy is divesting of hangar AFFF systems, which as it turns out, do far more damage with inadvertent discharges than they prevent in hangar fires. We did a Safety Center data pull when we were taking our AFFF system offline. There hasn't been a single class B hangar fire in the Navy going back 40+ years. We had all kinds of people weighing in, flailing their arms, telling us that we'd have to defuel aircraft before bringing them in the hangar. Nope, very comfortable accepting that risk. This is going to be the new normal, and we can't afford to throw manpower at corner case risks.
Ha, I've always wondered that! To which my reply would be, why do we need to man the hangar with a "fire watch" then (based on a base fire Marshall instruction for hangars whose AFFF systems are inactive)?! And let's be clear - the watch's job isn't to fight the fire as a sole person, it's literally to alert the QD watch to call the fire department. SMH...