Across Fort Stewart, soldiers are competing in a number of skills and events.
There are the combatives, testing soldiers in direct competition. Others are more sublime and maybe even more tasteful — such as Wednesday’s best chef competition and the innovations challenge.
In an ode to cooking competitions, crews from three units set up mobile field kitchens to prepare their best chicken entrée, rice dish and dessert for judges outside the Rocky Warrior II Dining Facility.
“It’s kind of different,” said Sgt. Jeremy James from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team.
His team was preparing chicken curry, fried rice and sauteed mixed vegetables, along with a cannoli. His own preference is the desserts.
“I have a sweet tooth,” he acknowledged.
Spc. Matthew Houston from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team and his crew were preparing a seared cajun chicken with enhanced gravy and a vegetable and rice risotto. While having his food judged by someone other than the hundreds of soldiers who line up every day is different, it’s also something they enjoy.
“We look forward to new opportunities, so anything to get out of our comfort zone,” he said. “We take an immense pride in it. After a tough mission, you eat good food, you have a good attitude.”
“We take a lot of pride in it,” Sgt. James added. “We like to see everybody smile.”
Sgt. Nathan Wright handled the dessert for his team, taking the peaches and cranberries and crumbling the cookies assigned to each team to make a crumble, using a little milk over the cookies to soften them.
Meanwhile, his other cooks separated the mixed vegetables from the carrots and mashed potatoes to add that to their chicken dish before boiling the rice, adding the mixed vegetables to it and adding some eggs to boot.
“That’s the Army,” he said. “They hand you a paper clip and a string and say, ‘make it happen.’ We’ve got a lot of soldiers now who are really creative with food.”
Across the cantonment area, judging was taking place at Marne Innovation Center on eight projects started and fostered by soldiers. Staff Sgt. Rafael Medina of the 63rd Expeditionary Signal Battalion showed off his virtual satellite enabler.
“It is going to allow us as a signal company to conduct maintenance without using sat time that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes two months to request,” he said.
Staff Sgt. Medina said his unit noticed about two years ago that they couldn’t get time on the satellite consistently and it was affecting their teams’ ability to validate their systems.
“We noticed the impact of that,” he said. “Soldiers were having a hard time knowing if their equipment worked or not.”
Their innovation, Staff Sgt. Medina said, could save the Army time and hundreds of thousands of dollars. His team is now out of the design phase and has printed the plastic it needs and hopes to start working on the metal part in January before implementing the mounting system into their weekly battle rhythm.
Other projects up for judging included a portable electromagnetic pulse emitter, a dropped munitions protection system for Abrams tanks and an Abrams turret decoy.
“It’s been a great experience at the Marne Innovation Center, learning the 3-D printing and understanding the engineering that goes behind the equipment,” Medina said.
Today’s events include the commanding general’s workout of the day and the winning brigade will be announced and a birthday cake for the division, prepared by 3rd ID culinary specialists, will be cut.
