Thanksgiving meal a strategic affair at state's largest Army post

“We're soldiers first, and then we're cooks — but you do the same thing here,” said Sgt. Sean Kennedy, first cook in the Garcia Dining Hall Facility. “You prepare, you make sure everything's good, you make sure it's stored right, that it's at the correct temperature. That's always in the back of your head — be safe.”

Wednesday, Kennedy led the first of three platoons responsible for cooking and serving Thanksgiving dinner this year. Similar teams are set up at four other dining halls across Fort Sill, about 90 miles southwest of Oklahoma City and home to the U.S. Army's Field Artillery and Air Defense Artillery.

Tactical crew begins

The prep crew was relieved by a tactical crew at 8 p.m., and at 5 a.m. the countdown to zero hour was scheduled to commence.

The mission: Make sure when the 3,500 basic trainees — with friends, family, retirees and anyone else who wants to join — start streaming in at 11:30 a.m., they forget they're not at home for the holidays.

With several industrial-size ranges, walk-in coolers and freezers and endless counter space, Kennedy said his current field of operations is a luxury compared to cooking in a real battlefield.

“You couldn't do this with raw meats down range because you can't trust the water source,” he said, shoving a vat of diced turkey under a sink faucet. “There you have to open water bottles.”

Instead of artillery shells and explosives, the Thanksgiving munitions at Garcia include 250 hams and 300 whole turkeys; 250 Cornish hens and 150 crab legs. Wearing white aprons and paper boat hats, the men will peel 100 pounds of shrimp and prepare 300 pounds of prime rib.