Behavioral Health Discharge Note: Fill & Download for Free

I should probably write this while it is all still fresh in my mind from my stay in the hospital. This will be long but detailed.Okay, lets open up and do this while I have the nerve to do it....Recently I went on hiatus for a little over a week. What I did not say is that I spent that time in the hospital. I will explain in detail the entire process from before to leaving as best I can. The links in this answer refer to other answers of mine that provide some details on certain personal topics I will leave out here because this is a long answer already.Firstly I have openly communicated about my depression, PTSD and past suicidal attempts before on Quora. I did this so that I can educate people and provide support to others that might be trying to deal with these issues themselves alone. You are not alone this is all far more common than most people believe. The experience of being hospitalized both this time and in the past was really not that scary nor incredibly unpleasant but it does take a toll. Hopefully I can clear up some misconceptions and give you an insight into what happens. This answer is about a short term crisis facility. In this context short term is under 30 days. A longer stay facility will have more activities and more programs with greater variety, I would hope. I have never been to a long term facility so I don't know for sure.Before HospitalizationI have struggled with these issues all of my life from age 6 onwards and recently things got much worse. I am receiving the bulk of my care from the state of Arizona and Medicare as I am disabled. Recent budget cuts and the states decision to cut services means the quality of care I have been getting has not been adequate to keep me healthy. Adding to that I developed a sensitivity to the medication I had been taking for years that was so bad that I would throw up an hour after taking it every single time I tried. I went off my antidepressants and as could be expected my mood crashed hard. This combined with stress at home and other factors to lead me into a depressive spiral.My biggest problems are clinical depression ruminating on things I do not have the power to fix such as my other physical health issues that I can't get treatment for and hypervigilance. When I am in a really bad place this leads to a spiral where I continually begin to cycle ways to kill myself over and over in my mind and yet am too afraid to actually do them. I can't stop the thoughts and I can't stop the crippling fear. It results in me becoming totally non functional.I have been through it before and knew what was going on so I asked my roommate to drive me to the ER that evening after telling people on Quora I would be gone for a while so they didn't worry.Emergency RoomChecking in at the ER for suicidal ideation and intent (the official terms) is the same as going for any other reason except you generally get better service. I am not kidding. You walk up to the desk and they ask why you are there and you fill out a little card that explains your name address and information. They will then ask why you are there even if you put "suicidal" on the card and like I did you say "I am suicidal... I don't feel safe, I am afraid I will kill myself if I don't get help."Assuming they don't have any pressing emergencies they will take you back to triage just like any other ER patient. They will check your temp, pulse, heart rate and blood pressure in a minute or two and weigh you. You then sit down and explain exactly why you are there and more information on what led to this. They might collect insurance info too at this time or later. Often this will happen while they take your vitals (BP, pulse, etc).If they agree that you are in bad shape and a threat to yourself they will have you sit or lay somewhere in easy view until they can find a place to put you. Many hospitals have separate beds just for behavioral health, some don't. Once they even had me put on a stretcher in the hall in clear view of the nurse's station. One way or the other they will see to you immediately. The reason being is once you are triaged and found to be potentially suicidal they are now responsible for your life if you kill yourself. In this case there were open beds in the hospitals behavioral health ER.It was a separate room adjacent to and inside of but separate from the ER. In this room was 6 beds with a wall between each bed and an open curtained front just like most other ER beds. There was also a single room that had a door and a larger more comfortable bed.First they have you take off all clothing and jewelry and strip down to your underwear in the bathroom. You do this yourself with no one watching and are given one of those hospital gowns to wear. They will ask you to give a urine sample and take you to a bed where you will get your blood drawn. You then sit in the bed and wait for the staff psychologist / psychiatrist to come and evaluate you. After the evaluation if they think you need to be hospitalized they will make the arrangements for you. They may even ask if you prefer a certain hospital. Then you wait. Depending on how full the behavioral health hospitals are you may wait a long time. I have waited up to 18 hours for a bed to open up before. This time it was more like 16. The wait can be a pretty agonizing wait but often you have a TV of your own if the hospital is good.Why go to an ER rather than Directly? Because the behavioral health hospitals are often so full it can take 4-24 hours for them to have an open bed. If you're in bad shape that may be too long. At the hospital you will get medication if needed and have nurses there to help. In this case one nurse and one med tech for up to 6 people. There were only 2 patients in there when I came in.Behavioral Health HospitalIf you are going from the ER to another hospital they will most likely take you by ambulance or some other vehicle prearranged for this purpose. You will be wheeled directly into the hospital and might sign some things in the ambulance and again have your vitals taken. Everything else is prearranged.After they wheel you in you go into the behavioral health unit. There will often be several doors and you will be comfortably sitting on a stretcher upright. They wheel you all the way in past several sets of doors most with electronic locks. This is the only really scary part in my opinion but it takes less than a minute. They walk fast in hospitals.You will be asked to climb down and go to an examination room. You will be introduced to one or more of the nurses and med techs and everything that happens next will be clearly explained before they do anything. Again you have your vitals checked and are weighed and might again need to give blood or urine. They may do some type of full body search but in my experience it is just drop your gown and turn around once. While this is happening you will be asked to explain everything all over again from the beginning and asked to sign paperwork. The paperwork explains your rights as a patient and the hospital policies and procedures as well as giving consent to be treated voluntarily. If you do not agree to go voluntarily they can petition you to stay for evaluation if they think it is warranted. I went voluntarily.They will normally not give back your clothes yet and will give you hospital scrubs to wear instead. Loose fitting pants and shirt with elastic bands, three sizes fit all. You will be given back any clothing that is relatively safe like a shirt, jacket or pants as long as they don't have cords or large metal parts. A Med Tech will show you around and show you to your room.I did the above image from memory. It might not be perfect and the top and bottom halls were a little longer but it is still pretty accurate.Not pictured here is the cafeteria and various activity rooms outside the wing. At my hospital they had a greenhouse, piano, library (tiny) and ping-pong table as well as various big conference rooms for activities such as art. You might get to visit each activity room for an hour or two on a specific day of the week.You will have a room that you will share with one other person. The rooms are big and the beds are spaced farther apart than pictured. My image is not to scale but most things in my picture are proportional to each other. Mostly it gives you an idea of the layout of one hospital. They are ALL different. The room was prolly 20'x30'. Or so it seemed, I didn't measure. You will have your own dresser / nightstand and sometimes the beds have drawers under them too. They give you a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, soap, earplugs and towels. These are yours and yours alone. The furniture is solid and generally too heavy to move or pickup. My bathroom was tiny. I mean really, really tiny. Different hospitals will have different layouts but most give you one roommate.Your entire day is structured. They have a schedule of things that happen at certain times and they expect and encourage you to follow the schedule but almost NOTHING is forced. Most people spend the first day or two in their room just laying down or sleeping that is what I did too. Often you would see a new person brought in but not see them again for a day or two outside of their room. They expect this and will not hassle you much at all in the beginning. The only mandatory things are seeing your doctor, your therapist / social worker and them taking vitals. This will happen even if they have to come to you but don't expect them to be happy about it. They will encourage you to at least leave the room for the doctor and therapist and almost all people do. You can even refuse your medications.The Typical Schedule6-6:30am Day Room Opens, TV, Newspaper and Coffee are available in the Day Room6-8am Vitals, Bloodwork, wake up.8am Breakfast You go to the cafeteria for this normally but your first day you might eat in the day room. Everyone else eats in the cafeteria so it is quiet in the Day Room and good for new people to adjust.8:30-9:30am Medication / Hygiene / Free time. People with morning meds get them now after the meal. They encourage everyone to shower and you can watch TV, read etc.9:30am Morning Group also called Goals Group. They encourage everyone to go but it is not mandatory and people can and will come and go. A Med Tech / Therapist asks each person how they are doing and what their goals are for the day. These groups can be very short or very long. Sometimes very deep or personal discussions go on in what is really a very informal group. You will be asked to rate your depression and anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10 and asked if you are hearing or seeing things. They ask everyone the same questions and some people are seeing things and hearing things everyone else isn't and sometimes they talk about it.9:30-11am Free time. The techs will try to do things to entertain everyone and keep people from getting bored. This could be as simple as sitting in the day room with people and chatting or putting on a movie. Some techs rent movies with their own money for the patients to watch. We watched Wall-E, Mask of Zorro and Oz the Great and Powerful while I was there maybe others I didn't see while I was reading. During this time people will be called to the med window, nurses station, and offices to see their therapist or case worker and occasionally for things like insurance. These kinds of meetings can happen at any time of the day but most happen in the hours just before or just after lunch.11:30am Lunch time. Lunch is in a cafeteria outside the wing. You stand in line and walk through a cafeteria line. There is usually different choices to eat and always a vegetarian option and/or salad.For example one day they had turkey and gravy, beef stroganoff over noodles, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, corn, clam chowder and mixed vegetables. There were also chef salads with ham cheese eggs etc., Jello, Boston cream pie, German chocolate cake, and chocolate cream pie, bowls of pears and peaches and fresh cut melon. Dinner rolls were always available. These were all options available in just one lunch.You can generally get any or all of the options that you can stomach. They may ration it because it has to feed other wings and patients though.12pm Medications if you have a mid day medication.12:30pm Group therapy. This usually changes depending on the day. One day it could be art therapy the next it could be the greenhouse or even pet therapy. Other types of group therapy are just covering specific topics, these include; addiction, grief, medication education with the pharmacist or other topics. If you stay longer than a week you might see the same group happen on the same day. Friday may always be art and Sunday may always be pet therapy. They will work some kind of therapy even into art such as painting what is going on in your head on an actual life sized Styrofoam head.1:30pm Discharge planning / free time again. If you are going home they will be walking you through that at this time. I will address this specifically later.2:30pm and/or 3:30pm another group therapy. Again with one of the subjects above. Usually one of the therapies each day is more fancy and the other is just sitting in a circle and talking.4:30pm Dinner. Similar choices to lunch but not the same thing that was offered for lunch unless they had a lot and it is being offered in addition to other choices as a third entree. It seems too soon for dinner and IMHO it is but they are going by medical mumbo jumbo that says you sleep better when you are not still digesting a big meal. Also if you have labs or bloodwork in the morning they don't want that too close to bedtime.5-6:30pm Free time / medications if you have an after dinner medication.6-7pm Visitation time. You meet with your visitors in the cafeteria along with everyone else and their visitors. This expands to 2 hours on weekends normally.6:30pm Snack time. They have both healthy and unhealthy snacks and usually a few choices. Fresh fruit is always available, other choices include sandwiches, crackers, gelatin, pudding, string cheese, tiny salads, sliced peaches, carrots and celery, pretzels, chips, popcorn etc.7:30pm or 8pm Wrap-up group. They go one by one and ask if you met your goal today (it was a test!) and how your day went. If you did they congratulate you if not they ask how they can help you to meet that goal better and / or why it failed. You are also asked general questions about the day. Again they ask about depression level and anxiety as well as voices and hallucinations. The techs take notes on your responses and these are used to gauge how successful todays treatment has been.8:30pm-9:15pm medications if you have a before bed medication or sleep aid.9pm Movie or TV time11pm Everyone is ushered out of the Day Rooms and they are locked. You can go where you want but you can't stay here. The lights are turned down and they don't allow any talking above a whisper. You don't have to go to bed but it gets pretty boring in your room or sitting in the hall and all the comfy chairs are in the Day Room.Wash-Rinse-Repeat New day, same as the last. Different activities for groups each day but same schedule at the same times.I might be off on the times. I didn't write the schedule down so this is going off memory after having the same schedule for a week so it should be pretty accurate. I can't say every hospital is like this but the three I have been to in the last 7 years were like this almost exactly. Each was run by a different company but in the same city and state. If you are staying at some fancy place it is prolly MUCH different but for the multitudes of people both moderately well off and not this is what you get. This is what your insurance will pay for.Free time and BoredomAdd it up and you still got a lot of free time to yourself. You also can use the phones at any time 9am to 9pm. You just walk up and dial as you wish. No one monitors it nor cares who you call. You can even make long distance calls but the staff have to put in a code on the phone first. Usually they limit the number of long distance calls but it is not a hard and fast rule. Where I was it was 3 long distance calls per shift. Which is 6-9 per day.There is always the TV during free time and usually there is more than one TV so people with different tastes can be accommodated in the different day rooms. The staff will also put in a movie during free time or find other things to keep people active like going outside in the field or some kind of game / discussion. You can read or socialize with the other patients and there's board games, cards, dice, chess, coloring pages and pencils, markers and crayons.It still gets really, unbelievably boring. I can only guess it is on purpose so we are forced to interact with each other and socialize which often leads to talking out your issues with the other patients. Sometimes they can be better therapy than the staff. Other patients might have more experience dealing with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, addiction or whatever brought you here than you do.Everything is monitored and everything is optional.Quietly and unbeknownst to many patients the staff is always watching you. Okay maybe that seems obvious but most don't realize how far that goes. They don't do this secretly or by cameras (though there are cameras in the halls) but by just walking around and listening and watching. They have clipboards on them all the time.Every 15 mins 24 hours a day EVERY patient is accounted for and they mark down what the patient is doing. This is done in teams with one Med Tech taking half and the other taking the other if they see crossover not on their list they mark that too. The little sheet (I sneaked looks cause as everyone knows I am curious like that) has the list of all patients and a series of checkmark boxes.They will put a check for.... Socializing, sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping, reading /activity like coloring, TV, crying/upset, phone, happy, etc. If you are standing and socializing happily while playing a game they will mark those four boxes.If you are not in a common area like the halls or day room they will walk to your room and peek in. If you fully shut the door they will knock. If the door is open or partly open that is invitation to look in. This also happens all night long. If you leave your door open it happens pretty quietly but if you prefer your door shut you might want to do like I did. I put a towel on the floor stopping the door from closing all the way but still mostly closed. This way it doesn't make noise when they push the door open to look in and then let it close again. Having the door closed also makes things quieter. Even at night there is always some noise. Med techs talking or a patient coughing or etc. The halls act like echo chambers at night and the slightest sound gets magnified. At least they give you good sleep meds so you can still sleep and ear plugs in case your roommate snores.Interesting Facts You Learn.Addiction is rampant in these hospitals. This comes from two sources firstly the same place you go for being suicidal is the same exact place you go for drug rehab. The second cause is patients with psychiatric issues trying to self medicate their problems away with alcohol or hard drugs. I would say in my UNscientific first hand experience that it ranges from 70% to 90% have some kind of addiction that is negatively affecting their life and family.Patients come from all walks of life. At one table you might have a heavily tattooed gay gangbanger, a Meth addict, an accountant, a construction worker, an unemployed kid 19 years old and living with their parents, a moderately wealthy banker, and a homeless man. They all have stuff in common and you might find people make friends at the hospital with people they would normally never associate with. The banker might have moved from a cocaine addiction to a meth addiction and be on the verge of loosing everything and confiding in the gangbanger or the homeless man. People just seem to gel together and find others that can identify with their issues and it can seem paradoxical and yet amazing. We really are all more the same than different.People really do sit around and color. You see it in movies and TV but it is real. Thankfully the staff pick out stuff from online that is not so childish and takes more skill than a 6 year old to color but there are also pictures of Micky Mouse too. I don't know why but there is something very therapeutic about coloring. Maybe it is that it takes us back to our childhood and happy memories or maybe that rythmic back and forth as you fill in the shapes is relaxing. Whatever it is, I did a lot of it and enjoyed it. Someone was always coloring at any given moment and sometimes 3 or 4 would be coloring together sharing a pile of pencils and crayons while talking.There are two or more different wards depending on the severity. People that are very unstable or unresponsive to treatment go to a separate ward. The largest group is the people that can generally maintain but are going through stuff that is somewhat equally as tough. You generally won't be in with people that are significantly crazier than you are. The woman that hears voices might also be a very good paralegal when she has the right medications and be a good person to talk to when you're upset. She knows she hears voices and knows they aren't real but can't stop hearing them. She might not be much different than someone who is always wearing headphones is. A little spaced and looking not fully observant but she won't fly into a rage randomly either.The system is overburdened, under funded and lacks sufficient quality control. Some hospitals are great others not so much. You get to see your doctor every day and your therapist or case worker every day but they are clearly overworked and don't have time to listen to even most of your problems. They have a routine and follow much of their job by rote. They may select different medications and dosages based on each patient's needs and history but mostly they just want to find the right MEDs to stop the immediate crisis and get you out of the hospital. There are lots of people there that care and try to help but they are caring workers on an assembly line and your brain is on the conveyor belt.Insurance determines the treatment more than doctors in many cases. If your insurance doesn't cover that one drug that might help you then you don't get it. If your health plan only covers 10 days you better have a credit card handy the moment you go to day 11. Insurance companies have standards and practices set up under payment schedules and the hospital works around those.It is reminiscent of an adult High School. You have class, you have lunch and you have recess. The teachers are always watching and can be very helpful and caring or scolding depending on the situation. Students can be cliquish or not and are generally bored out of their minds. (Literally) The big difference is it is 24 hours a day 7 days a week high school. It isn't fun but it is not hell either. I would say unpleasant but necessary.They treat you like an adult but expect you to act like one too. Nuff said there.You can do laundry and the guys can shave (while being closely watched). They have a washer and dryer and you do your own laundry. You have to ask them to unlock the door to it though.You can have personal items as long as they are safe. Glasses, maybe a watch (not always), books and toiletries. They have the final say what stays or goes. Things you can't have are locked up.DischargeYou and your doctor have seen an obvious improvement and it is decided that it is time to go home (or your insurance ran out). The hospitals won't push anyone out that is truly in need but they might try to transfer them to a state funded hospital beyond the time allotted or a long term facility if they only handle short term hospitalization. The beginning of your schedule goes like above.You meet with your doctor for the last time and they go over your medications and prescriptions you will need to go home as well as any recommendations or suggestions the doctor might have and many words of encouragement. You will meet with your therapist/caseworker several times on discharge day. They will make sure you have a therapist/psychiatrist appointment lined up before you leave and a home to go to if at all possible. They might have been working on these things in the day or two before you go as well before you even knew you were leaving. If you already had a doctor they will have set up an appointment for you if not you now have a doctor if you want one. They will bring you your stuff and let you go over it all to make sure it is all there.So now I am home with new meds and old problems but my mood is about 300% better than it was. Many on Quora may not have realized but my mood has been slowly slipping for months. I am good at hiding it. I am beginning to feel almost normal again and have plans and appointments setup with my doctors now that I am home to prevent this from happening again anytime soon. I still have other physical medical issues that go unresolved with no means to pay for them to be corrected and still have my depression and PTSD but everything is almost manageable again. I do not regret going to the hospital at all even though it wasn't fun. My roommate says I am like a whole new person compared to when I went in so I must be feeling even better than I realize.Huggles!

I was discharged as other than honorable. Not as bad but still not great.I did not get a job as a van driver because the company owner was retired military and asked a lot of questions about my service.I then applied at a large company and the hiring manager didn’t know or care about my military service and I got hired.My current work experience trumps my work history and no one asks or cares about my past.Prior military people ask about my service and I give full details and we all have a laugh because screwing up is funny in retrospect.EDIT: Thank you for the positive response. I would like to discuss the “other than honorable” and “dishonorable” being two different discharges comments. They are. I did not commit any crimes comparable to a felony. To be clear, being overweight or having permanent health issues and theft or habitual tardiness can lead to an other than honorable discharge. You signed a very specific contract with the GOVT and it has very specific rules.I want to be clear that a dishonorable discharge can for committing a felony. Or not.I wanted to have a list of violations that may lead to either discharge and would have no related civilian comparison. Please review and decide what would make sense to be regarded as felonious.Punitive Articles of the UCMJ (ArmyStudyGuide.com)I will also ask a controversial question in general. If felons pay their debt to society by going to jail, why are they punished permanently? If having they are not introduced back into society and allowed to reestablish themselves, what are their options?More relevant, many dishonorably discharged service members were discharged for behavior that would simply get them fired in a civilian job. NOTE: I know what they signed up for. But in the civilian world, they continue to be punished for infractions that have no relatable violation.If criminals are criminals and especially violent or sadistic, remove them from society forever. But a bad incident should not be a lifetime mark. Most random crime is done mostly by males and mostly under 30 years of age. Even crime ages out.I do feel guilty for adding all this postscript and having the upvotes already. They should have a chance to remove the upvote as I added more of my opinion.I hope this is taken as a conversation and is still my own personal experience.

I am a cook in the U.S. Army (Or, Culinary Specialist, as the Army now wants to call us)What is it like to be a Golf?It’s an MOS that demands long hours (16–20 hour days, while those days are few and far between, they happen) The work, while not inherently stressful, can become as stressful as you make it, or in my case, as others make it. I’ll explain later.When you graduate Basic Combat Training, Advanced Individual Training (AIT), and then report to your first duty station, you will work in what is known as a DFAC (shorthand for ‘dining facility’). It’s a fancy name for what amounts to a high school or hospital cafeteria. It’s not impressive, by any stretch of the imagination.Army update #2,757: To keep this response as current with the times as possible, I am making an editorial note here to inform viewers and the asker that DFAC’s are now, officially, known as ‘Warrior Restaurants.” I disagree with that new name, but obviously it’s above my pay grade. Perhaps ‘Warrior Cafeteria’ is a better suited name. Polishing a turd does make it any less of a turd.You will have NCO’s, guaranteed, where this MOS is all they know (more like all they could qualify for) and take it a step beyond ‘way too seriously.’Some of the laziest shitbags you’ll ever meet will be cooks, too. If you’re a hard worker, be prepared to often pick up their slack and be reprimanded by NCO’s who don’t think you’re picking up enough of lazy’s slack. Yes, instead of them reprimanding the lazy people, the hard workers get the third degree for the meal not getting out in time, and if you try and explain why, you get put at parade rest by that NCO and are, essentially, shut up.You will meet cooks who can’t hack the Army, but have been in too long to go crying for their failure to adapt chapter, so they get fat and chase body comp chapters, or purposely fail their physical fitness test to get chaptered for PT, or, less commonly, chase behavioral health chapters…. “I’m crazy”, when you know it’s not true because those people weren’t crazy when they joined the Army seven months ago (because most of these people have been in less than a year). A few ‘pop’ piss tests, but that’s not the way to get an Honorable Discharge. So, most don’t take that route.You’ll come to learn most cooks can’t cook. Are they ill prepared from AIT? Definitely. Are we making five star meals, though? No. We’re putting vegetables in steamers, cooking off thawed meat in a tilt grill, or in an oven. Anyone with a brain stem should, theoretically, be able to do this job. Many cannot, and it honestly surprises me. They’re either incapable, or capable but lazy/complacent. Either way, they’re no good.You’ll have the top shitbag that NCO’s love, and will accommodate to no end, who don’t do any work, constantly disappear, or are on appointment all day, who show their face only every now and then, are on profile for two out of three APFT events, get in UCMJ trouble all of the time yet somehow retain their rank, and somehow are about to go to the promotion board, to top it all off they LOVE telling you how to do your job. You really wonder how the hell they’ve made it this far, oh… and you didn’t hear? That shitbag is re-enlisting next week, are you going to their ceremony? *Eye roll*Now back to the part I said I would explain later:“It’s as stressful as you make it or as stressful as other’s make it.”My DFAC has to take the cake as the worst in the entire Army. It’s terrible because of terrible leadership, terrible soldiers, and in general its terrible reputation precedes it. The terrible reputation tarnishes the motivated attitude of new soldiers, and NCOs, and perpetuates generation after generation of dislike and complacency for the DFAC’s mission. Add the out of touch senior leadership calling the shots from their desk nowhere near the facility, who know nothing of the environment we work in, and you have a big bowl of ‘fuck this place’ soup among your workers.How do we solve this problem, leadership asks?Well leadership answers their own question:“We solve the problem by making soldiers work more than they already do as punishment, we micromanage them more, we blame them for failed health inspections and tell them that one grain of rice in the corner they missed is the reason we fail health inspections, even though the reality is we sit on our asses while shift cooks the meal, responding to Facebook messages and looking at Snapchats, instead of doing our jobs to ensure kitchen ops run smoothly and as they should. Then, get up just in time from our hiding place to pretend like we’re working during serving time to look good for customers.Nothing about the 92G mission is difficult. Nothing is hard. Incompetent people, like anywhere in life, make the job difficult. Incompetent people always seem to be in charge, and act like they know everything, and stand in your way. Welcome to life, welcome to the U.S. Army, where no matter which job or MOS you pick, will always be an issue.Now, don’t quit reading here. I’m not done! I wanted you to read the negatives first and save the positives for last, and there are many!Just like every Army unit, every Army DFAC is not the same. Some of them are the same, but not all. The best DFAC experience I had was when I wasn’t in my own. But down the street at a different one, helping another unit support a mission. The NCO’s worked, and there was no micromanagement. Instead, the focus was on completing the mission. Yes, the NCO’s were still NCO’s and made corrections, it is the Army after all. However, it was a different environment. One where we had more free reign and flexibility to do our jobs. My first two weeks at my assigned DFAC made me hate it, but those two weeks at another DFAC changed my perceptions. I actually had fun doing my job, like I did cooking in my civilian jobs. I felt challenged again.In 2019, I even participated in the Army’s version of ‘Chopped’, or ‘MasterChef’, or whatever would fitting to be a Food Network show. It was a competition to determine the Culinarian of the Quarter. You took an APFT, if you passed, you went on to a Culinarian of the Quarter Board before the Chief Culinary Management NCO (A Sgt Major, but in my case an acting 92G Master Sgt) Once that board was done, the next day you cooked. You have Senior NCO judges, like you would on a cooking show, rate what they thought was the best dish.This is me, during the competition, working on my dish. I made sesame chicken with pilaf rice (w/ mushroom) and sliced summer squash as the garnish for the chicken. I didn’t win by the way, but I was given about four day’s notice for this board so sympathize with me a little. I had, if I recall right, about an hour and 15 minutes to make this dish… Almost all from scratch, meaning I had to gather my ingredients, cook my chicken, make and cook my reduced sauce, etc.I mentioned you’ll deal with, and meet, shitbags as a cook. I assure you that you’ll meet some of the best and brightest cooks, too. Some really amazing human beings who make you wonder how and why they chose this MOS. I chose this MOS, even with many other options, and even I question my sanity now and again! Some of my most best friends and worst enemies are/were 92 Golfs. It’s funny, isn’t it?Well, I hate to leave novel length answers. So here goes it:Summarized, this MOS is what you make of it and it will suck a lot as far as hours and working conditions go. You won’t always be in a DFAC, you’ll cook in the field with equipment that doesn’t always want to work, you’ll cook downrange in good, or bad, conditions. Trust me when I say, you CAN do better MOS-wise. You either pick it because you want to do it (like I did) or you pick it because that’s all you qualify for. If the latter is true for you, please don’t join. We have enough people like that who are stuck in a job they hate AND didn’t choose. They think those two facts alone give them carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want. Like not show up to work, or pull their weight.Whatever MOS you pick, if not this one, the Army will still work you hard. Even if your job is 9–5, you still get 24 hour duty, gate guard, etc. They’ll get those weekends worked out of you, they’ll get those long days out of you. Your MOS doesn’t matter. And guess what perk we have as cooks? We don’t get duty or gate guard!And the best part for me? This MOS, regardless of how bad it got, paid for my GI bill that i’m using this fall at Utah State University and a lifetime of VA benefits!Best of luck to you. Please reach out if you have further questions.**Edited to address inquiry into how field rotations are for 92G’s**As every DFAC and unit is different in the Army, so will be your field training experiences. If your unit is heavily tasked to train in the field, you’ll spend a lot of time out there. Vice versa, I know cooks who told me their last units would only go to the field once a year, for about a week at the longest. AND THEY WOULD KNOW ABOUT THE FIELD PROBLEM SEVERAL MONTHS IN ADVANCE. I’d like to know where I can hop on those cherry assignments, because I’m damn sure burnt out where I’m at.I come from a unit that would not think twice about sending you to the field even if it meant missing the birth of your first born.I digress.Field ops are field ops. You are playing ‘Soldier’ and in my case, cook. It all depends what your unit’s mission is. Their mission will dictate how much you execute your MOS, and how much you play Soldier.In my experience, I spent a lot of time cooking and, every now and then, responding to OPFOR IDF or their attacks. Being a 249 gunner, I am always needed to lay down the heavy firepower to assist in maintaining the line. God forbid the BSA crumble.In the typical field setup, you are setup much like a remote forward operating base (FOB). There is a TOC (tactical operations center) that houses all company commanders, and a battalion commander (if you’re operating at brigade level, then all company commanders, all BN commanders, and the BDE commander) All S-2 assets (intelligence), S-3 assets (Ops), S-6 assets (basically, your IT department) work in the TOC.Cooks are apart of the unit’s field feeding team, or ‘FFT’. All unit structures vary, but the typical FFT is composed of one E-7 (Sergeant First Class) who acts as the Platoon Sergeant and is the Senior NCO within the team, one E-6 (Staff Sgt) who is the squad leader, and (usually) two to three E-5’s (Sergeant) act as the team leaders, and on occasion Army E-4’s who are Corporals. (Not Specialists, but they can act in that capacity unofficially, to prepare to become a Cpl/Sgt) can be team leaders as well.The equipment we use in the modern day are the:1.) Assault Kitchen2.) Containerized Kitchen3.) MKT/ KCLFF (exceedingly rare, but there are those units who are so poor they’re forced to live in the 1980s/1990s)4.) Field Sanitation Center5.) Modern Burner Units (These days, MBU V3)We utilize pre-packaged/boxed food known as a Unitized Group Ration. There a few types of these rations. UGR-A, UGR HS (Heat and Serve), and UGR-S (Short Order)The menus vary and change, but essentially mimic food we serve in a garrison DFAC. There is a starch, a vegetable, and a protein (meat).If you’re curious about the eggs, because for some reason people always seem to be, we use Mountain House freeze dried eggs from Oregon Freeze Dry. Obviously, they are reconstituted in water (duh) and then boiled in the bag they come in, in what is known as a tray pack heater. Viola, you have eggs when they’re done. Cut the bib open and pour the eggs into a pan and put the pan on the hot serving line. They’re ready to eat.How are meals structured?Army regulation says in the field Soldiers are entitled to two hot meals and one cold meal. Now, Soldiers don’t always get two hot meals. Sometimes they live on MRE’s for days. It’s not a perfect world we live in. But we do our best to make sure we meet mission and get them two hot meals, but sometimes command decisions are made above our heads we can’t control, or the there was a breakdown in the logistics chain somewhere.If everything runs as it should, we’ll wake up around 0330 or 0345 and begin cooking at 0400 to have the meal ready to serve by 0630 or 0700. All of the breakfast modules will have been broken down and set up the night prior. The serving period in the field lasts two hours on average, but can be extended by Commander approval.We will finish up the breakfast meal, clean up, and, if we’ve planned ahead, we can catch some shut eye in the tent because we’ll have had dinner’s meal broken down the night before, too. Sometimes a few days worth of meals ahead of time so we have a lot of downtime. If not, we break down the dinner meal.Around 1500, we get back to work and start cooking the dinner meal. By 1700, we’re serving food and it runs until about 1900. Then, we break the dinner service down, make sure our KP’s are done cleaning everything, then we go to bed. It’s usually 2100–2130, sometimes 2200 by that time. Ah, finally sleep!GUARD DUTY?Oh yes. If you have an asshole unit like I had at the end of my tenure and an E-7 that doesn’t mind throwing you under the bus and scheduling you every night as long as that E-7 got their 8 hours of sleep (and if somehow you are reading this, you know damn well who you are) then you get to wake up at 0145 so you can pull guard from 0200 to 0600. Just in time to help with breakfast meal!No sleep!Welcome to the suck. Work alot, sleep little.