My two penny’s worth having just come out of the present system.
Separate messes a must. For a start everyone needs a break from there boss, also in my experience a lot of decisions / discussions / advice go on over the lunch / dining table. I certainly learnt a lot listening to my peers in the SNCO's mess.
My last mess, on a frontline station, (clue goes up vertically just don’t hang things off the wings) shut at the weekends (including the bar) and it was back to the JRM (after booking a meal) the troops didn’t want us there as much as we didn’t want to be there. There was no animosity but it was there dining room and I don't walk into your dining room uninvited.
I don't agree with PAYD, and as a SNCO that ran a section full of youngsters I have thought about it and discussed it at length with the troops. Most of them won't pay out of principle and that’s because they hate the mess as it is, wave a get out clause in front of them and they will gladly accept it. They will live on fast food out the Spar or p
it up against the wall. Ok that’s there choice but there supposed to be in the military and part of that regime, like it or not, involves a certain level of fitness. Letting the troops eat fast food all week is not going to help that cause.
I have yet to eat in a mess where the contractors have provided a better service, period. There in it to make money not to feed people and I fail to see how contracting catering services out will help any military organization.
It may make me sound like an old f*** but people who bang on about freedom of choice in the military worry me, are they the same people who insisted on single rooms for even the most lowly of ranks? I know of least three suicides that happened during my time that partly could be put down to sending someone to a single room on a Friday night in the middle of winter, miles from home, with no entertainment and nothing to do for miles around. Im convinced that making troops in there first two years of service share a room would solve a lot of the problems the military suffer with its younger brethren.
PAYD may not lead to suicides but it’s yet another nail in the coffin of the military caring about its people.
Rant over, sorry it’s a bit long winded.