ANSBACH, Germany (July 16, 2020) — The 16th Sustainment Brigade activated the 221st Quartermaster Company during a ceremony in Grafenwoehr, Germany, July 16. The company is the last field feeding company in the Army to be stood up, and Ansbach received 2nd Platoon to work in the Katterbach dining facility (DFAC).
The Army has suffered a shortage of culinary specialists, or military occupational specialty (MOS) 92G due to force reductions. Field Feeding Companies were designed to consolidate culinary specialists and field feeding equipment in order to support units during field training and exercises, as well as operate installation DFACs when units are at home station.
“It was a realignment Army-wide,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Zachary Glathar, 16th Sustainment Brigade senior food advisor. “The Army came up with this great plan to build field feeding companies that would report to echelons above brigade units for a lot of the field feeding requirements these units had when they were training or deployments.”
Glathar said, the Army can select field feeding teams based on their readiness status, and deploy them anywhere around the world.
Previously named Wings of Victory DFAC, the Ansbach facility is now known as the Warrior Restaurant. Every 92G in U.S. Army Garrison Ansbach, 31 culinary specialists and one platoon leader, now fall under 2nd Platoon, 221st Quartermaster Company.
Sgt. 1st Class Terrell Brown, 2nd Platoon, 221st Quartermaster Company platoon sergeant, said being part of the field feeding company makes them more flexible.
“I was the food advisor, the dining facility manager, and also the section noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC), so I was doing all of those jobs. With the switch we have more MTOE [modified table of organization and equipment] slots,” he said. “We can … https://core.us.army.mil/iemessage actually focus on what we need to do.”
Sgt. 1st Class Malcolm Jackson was appointed by 16th Sustainment Brigade to be the new dining facility manager.
Prior to taking over as the dining facility manager, Jackson was the NCOIC for 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment (5-4 ADAR), and he managed the 5-4 ADAR Soldiers that worked at the Wings of Victory DFAC.
“Now I have more Soldiers which is kind of fun,” Jackson said. “Everybody has different personalities, everybody has something different to bring to the table, and I’m just trying to make it happen and make it better for everyone.”
Brown and Jackson agreed the new platoon feels more like a family.
“One of the challenges I had was to bring two units together under one umbrella,” Brown said. “Although we are all 92Gs, 5-4 ADAR priorities might be different than the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, so that was a challenge.”
To bring the new platoon together, Brown and Jackson decided to name them Hydra Platoon.
“Our company is Dragon Company, so we took that and keyed in what we could do to make it more meaningful and more impactful for these Soldiers, to want to come to work, to want to be a part of the same team,” Brown said.
Brown said there is a history behind the name they chose. Based on the mythical sea serpent Jörmungandr, who swallows his own tail forming an unending circle. In most cultures this represents the circle of life that has not true beginning or end, with everything transforming into something new.
The field feeding team is ready, so if units have a request for support, it can be sent to the 16th Sustainment Brigade. The team does not just support units within the USAG Ansbach footprint.
“We serve Soldiers from all over Europe, if the task comes down instead of it just being 5-4 ADAR or 12th CAB,” Brown said. “We just had a crew come back from Poland for the Army birthday.”
Jackson said Warrior Restaurant is ready and open for business, and new menus are coming soon.
“We have a new, exciting short order menu coming,” he said. “Pizza is going to be done every day including the weekends. I can’t wait for people to come in and see what is going on, experience the chicken fingers, chicken sandwiches, pizza, philly cheese steak, all that stuff. We will even have different specialty sandwiches like the warrior burger, that’s coming too.”
Additionally, now available at DFAC are German pastries.
Everything is available for takeout. Warrior Restaurant offers a 14-16 inch pizza, salad, dessert and drink for dinner for under $5. Breakfast costs $3.50, lunch costs $5.65 and dinner costs $4.90.
Currently, Warrior Restaurant is competing in the annual Department of the Army (DA)-level Phillip A. Connelly Competition at the U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) level against other regional units.
If selected at the USAREUR level, they will go to the DA level that will be between February and April.
The contest measures a unit's ability to provide top-notch tactical field feeding operations, and includes culinary specialists executing their area of expertise with meal preparation and execution within regulation for the meals that are evaluated.
The winners of the competition will be determined in April, and that team will be invited to American Culinary Federation Headquarters in Chicago to receive the Phillip A. Connelly Award at some point this summer.
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