Forum: Air Force Life

Enthusiast Joined: Jan 11, 2007 - 07:35 PM Posts: 20

I am helping coordinate a combat dining in for my squadron, and I was wondering who has been in one, what various things you did besides eat, etc.

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Salute!

Depends on what you are calling a "combat" dining in.

If you intend to have wives and girlfriends and guests, then you may have to do things slightly differently.

No matter, you must avoid trying to do all the things you have heard about or seen in movies. That is not how you do it.

I wrote/updated the protocol manual for social events when I was at Maxwell AFB in my previous life. I conducted a formal dining in every 11 weeks for 2 and a half years. I know how to do these things. I also participated and planned another dozen or so when I was in real fighter squadrons.

Contact me vis PM and try to find the official protocol guide at Air University website.

Gums sends...

P.S. Don't use real fish in the grog bowl and then have some stoopid Lite Col like me eat the damned thing thinking it was a plastic doofer. The young lady at our table barfed right then and there when I admitted the green, slimey thing was an actual herring!

Elbows wrote:

I am helping coordinate a combat dining in for my squadron, and I was wondering who has been in one, what various things you did besides eat, etc.

Is this in an AOR or back at home base? The term "combat" in combat dining in is a loose one. Usually means people don't dress up nice Laughing

and the antics are a little more unusual.
Squadron probably=more fun. Wing level means more PC bullshit. Have some ideas for a theme. The theme could be anything. Enlarged photos of the squadron history ( if it has a long one ) and similar decor. ( if it is a real famous squadron you can have ex squadron peeps send you stuff to borrow... old battle flags... gear /uniforms of the era etc etc. Get a good DJ that you think everyone will like. Do what Gums says as there should be plenty of dinning in checklist/manuals floating about. ( has to have some structure ). Try and keep the squadron commander relatively sober as he has to give directions/orders punish certain people by bringing them to the grog bowl and offering a good verbal description of their offense. The squadron commander will have to speak so make sure the speech is fun. But most likely he/she has seen a dinning in or two before.
If you have it.... (harder to find these days with the downsizing ) get one of the base photographers. Or get someone passable with a camera to take some fun snaps of the evening.
If you are doing just a squadron it should be more fun assuming your commander and staff are good to be around.

I don't think my current sq even KNOWS what a dining in/out is. Compared to my last assigment, where I attended a Wing dining-out and sq combat dining in, which was some of the most fun I've had in the USAF. The only dinners here are the stuffy, mess-dress formal deals (awards, farewells, etc). Yet, the higher-ups complain when there isn't much of a presence from the junior Enlisted crowd. Even our Holiday party (the last two years) has been bland and uniteresting. Guess I was just lucky to have some awesome leadership at my last assignment.

One of my best memories from Tyndall was when during a dining out, our table of crew dawgs started throwing baby carrots at some nonners which turned into a full fledged food fight. So our group, being devious like we should be, withdrew from the fight to hide behind the big curtain backdrop with a ample supply of carrots. We then proceeded to bombard the crowd from behind the curtain while everyone else was fighting it out in the open. Well a certain services commander (COL type) discovered us back there and started chewing us out big time. Well our base commander heard what was happening and came back and told the Col. to get back to his seat and that we were his crew chiefs responsible for his jets which meant we could do pretty much whatever we wanted that night. It was mind blowing to hear what was coming out of his mouth.

Gums wrote:

P.S. Don't use real fish in the grog bowl and then have some stoopid Lite Col like me eat the damned thing thinking it was a plastic doofer. The young lady at our table barfed right then and there when I admitted the green, slimey thing was an actual herring!

That has to be the hardest that I've laughed all week! I don't know what would've been funnier, watching the fish go down the hatch, or watching the girl sell a Buick. It would depend on how inebriated I was at that point.

One good thing to remember, and I'm sure this one will bring back some memories for Gums too: If there is wine, don't have dinner rolls. If there are dinner rolls, make sure the wait staff has put them up before distributing the red wine. Trust me on this!

This actually happened to a friend, not at a dining in, but at an O-Club function. He was an O-6, and the Vice Wing C/C at the time. He and his wife were at a formal function, when some of the more junior fly boys decided it would be a really great idea to have wine-soaked dinner roll fight. This was the first time the Colonel's wife was wearing her brand new, expensive white dress. See where I'm going with this? Wink

Long story short, that was the one and only time the Colonel's wife was able to wear her brand new, expensive white dress. Can't say the fly boys were totally to blame, though. Her "lungs" probably obstructed the intended target. Laughing

akruse21 wrote:

One of my best memories from Tyndall was when during a dining out, our table of crew dawgs started throwing baby carrots at some nonners which turned into a full fledged food fight.

Akruse, was this at the NCO Club that nobody uses, or at the O-Club?

actually it was at a dressed up hangar 3

Enthusiast Joined: Jan 11, 2007 - 07:35 PM Posts: 20

Thanks for the replies. Gums, I don't know what I'd have done after eating that fish . Hopefully you couldn't taste it. I just hope someone got a picture of you eating that damn thing.

Shaba, you could try to start up the tradition, I remember an A1C tried to do that at Luke, but there was some problem with funding or something so it never got off the ground.

I've brought it up before, with no luck. Now, I will be out of the AF in about a month. Oh well.

At Tyndall, we had the Wing dining out in a hangar (don't remember any food fights, though). But, we had sq level ones at the NCO club (which WAS hardly ever used).

akruse21 wrote:

actually it was at a dressed up hangar 3

Oh, ok. Hangar 3, so you were a "Bonehead", eh? Never attended one in a hangar, but that's a pretty cool idea. Would make for an easier food fight cleanup. Plus, with it being in the hangar, no wonder you guys were so hard on the nonners. Laughing

yeah it was the wing dining out. I was a fury, no bonehead here Smile

Ah, gotcha. I guess that would explain the Services Colonel, and the nonners. Was Col. Palumbo the 1FS C/C back then?

yup, then he followed me to Okinawa as the OG commander.

Cool guy. Knowing "Bash", he was prolly in the thick of that food fight with everybody else. Laughing

Last place I knew where he was, was Randolph (Chief of Safety for Air ETCetera, and T-38 IP). Heard he retired though.

sorry i was thinking of Col. Freaney and not Polumbo.

Forum: Air Force Life

Combat Dining ins