Hot Meals: Services Fires Up New Mobile Kitchen

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Tabitha Spinks
  • 403rd Wing
KEESLER AFB, Miss. --  Meal-to-meal is the way many Airmen mark time in the field. A biological clock sounds the alarm that lets them know it is time for chow as the smells of hot rations steam from the kitchen.

In the past, troops filed through the old cramped Mobile Kitchen Trailer. Today, Services specialists have a new way to prepare those hot meals. The Single Pallet Expeditionary Kitchen, a deployable tent loaded with the latest in cooking and food preparation technology, is where most Airmen will go to ward off their hunger in the field.

A team from the 403rd Services Flight "Prime Beef" were excited to try out their first SPEK at November's Unit Training Assembly. They spent the weekend putting together and preparing meals in the deployable kitchen that has taken the place of the MKT.

"It is a lot more convenient than the MKT," said Senior Airman Zandra Thigpen. "It only takes 45 minutes to warm the burner and another 45 minutes to cook the food."

Thigpen was a Services specialist with the 926th Fighter Wing at New Orleans Naval Air Station and was transferred to the 403rd after Hurricane Katrina. She and a small group from the unit went to Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga. in September for training on the SPEK. The team spent a week learning how to assemble, store and take care of the SPEK. They also explored the safety aspects of working with new equipment in the portable kitchen.

Master Sgt. Jeff Mulvaney and Tech. Sgt. Kelly Kruger, Services combat instructors from Dobbins, came to the 403rd UTA to help teach the flight how to set up a SPEK.

"Within four hours, we can have the tent built and a meal prepared," said Mulvaney.

The SPEK is equipped with a 3-section Temper Tent with specialized flooring, the Multi-Ration Heater and generator, a three compartment sink, cleaning supplies and safety equipment such as an eye wash and fire extinguishers loaded onto a standard palette that is highly mobilized, according to Mulvaney.

The crew spent most of Saturday setting up the kitchen. They built the tent and set down the flooring. After they moved in the tables and other equipment, Kruger explained the process of lighting and using the Babington Burner, the heating source for the MRH which runs on diesel fuel.

Sunday morning, the flight spent some time troubleshooting a difficult burner while Kruger showed them how to make quick field repairs. There will always be technical difficulties, she said.

When everything was ready to go, the team began to prepare Unitized Group Rations for lunch. The MRH can feed up to 550 Airmen in a two-hour time period more than doubling the capacity of the the MKT which could only fed up to 250 people per meal.

The SPEK is definitely more efficient than the MKT and is also much safer, according to Staff Sgt. Wayne Cox, Services specialist.

"The MKT was so small and ran on compressed unleaded gasoline," said Cox. "If the burner got too hot, we had to shut everything down. We might as well have been sitting on a bomb."

The SPEK is spacious and allows more comfort for the Services workers leaving less room for injuries, according to Cox.

The 403rd will continue to train in the SPEK so that they are well prepared in case of deployment to an undeveloped location where this efficient, temporary kitchen would be necessary. It normally serves up to 30 days in the field or until an expanded bare base kitchen is built.