5 reasons why lower enlisted prefer the gut truck over the cook

Cooks in the military try their hardest. If you befriend them, they'll always find a way to slide a few extra slices of bacon your way. But no matter how close you get with the cook in your unit, you're always going to swing by the gut truck when they arrive. For those not in the know, gut trucks (or "roach coaches") are like a civilian food truck except that their menu doesn't need to be elaborate to attract customers. The bar for quality is set at "better than a scoop of powdered eggs." And it's nothing personal — hell, even the cooks will skip their own food to grab a breakfast burrito from the gut truck. Why?

If you want to grab chow from the dining facility, you have to go to them. If you're in the field and the cooks joined you for the morning, you still have to go to their stand.

It doesn't matter whether you're at the battalion area, the motor pool, or the back 40 in a field exercise — the gut truck is just a quick call away.

Coffee isn't known for its quality in the military. Yeah, it'll get you up in the morning, but that's about it. If you want an energy drink or some junk food, you'll need to bring it with you.

Don't worry. That retired Sgt. Maj. who realized how much money is blown on junk food every day has you covered. The truck is always fully stocked.

Food trucks work on civilian time. To them, more customers means more money. Now, don't get this twisted — we know military cooks are giving it their all.

Food trucks simply don't allow high-ranking officers and NCOs to play rock, paper, chevrons and cut the line to ask for an extremely complicated custom order that backs the line up. (If you or someone you know does this, know that troops talk sh*t behind their or your back.)

Gut trucks over stock with food before heading out and they have a good idea of how many troops they'll be feeding. If they don't have the breakfast burrito you wanted, they'll have tons of whatever else you're thinking of.

Conversely, cooks will ration every last piece of bacon like it's the end of the world only to throw tubs of it away at the end of the meal.

See the cover photo at the top of this article? That's actually not a civilian-owned gut truck. That's actually a military food truck from the 3rd Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade as part of a test to judge troop reception. And so far, it's working!

The cooks caught on to what works best for troops in the field and, unlike civilian trucks, these accept the meal-card given to the soldiers in the barracks. It serves all the stuff that troops want — with a little less tasty, tasty junk.