Does Military Culinary education count towards education requirements?

[Daniel Kangiser]

I have 48 credit hours of education through an accredited culinary institute with a 3.58 GPA, I also have 18 weeks culinary education through the US Coast Guard and placed at the top of my class. Yet I don't meet the educational requirements to become certified as an Executive Chef. What's up with this? By the way, I have been an Executive Chef for years without your certification, and a very good one. 35 years in the BOH, yet I don't meet your requirements. To be truthful, I never even heard of your organization until I had 15-17 years experience. Many of us started out as a busboy or dishwasher when we were 15-16 years old, I started out that way in 1973 as a janitor, moved up to busboy and dishwasher, line cook and so on. In otherwords I paid my dues over and over again. Now in my early 50's it's hard to believe that people that are young enough to be my children are able to get certified as an Executive Chef, and I am not. Your certification is meaningless or I should say unfair when you exclude very capable people because of a formal education. Many of us learned on the job, and under some great Chef's. I can't count the number of 70-80 hour weeks I spent in the kitchens throughout my career. The ACF is simply a school promoter, a branch of the Culinary Institute of America, and other schools have bought into their program to boost their quotas of students. It is a very great business plan that has succeeded, yet leaves the ordinary guy out. If the ACF is legitatamate there should be a written and practicle test only. Who cares if you went to school or not!!! Many of us can't afford their outragous fees.

[Daniel Kangiser]

You reference the bad guy's over and over again in your posts, so I guess we are the good guy's in your mind. This is a moment for you and the rest of the troops that you represent. Kick ass and take names later, don't worry about the child we blew up in the process, or the innocent civilians we have killed. When our troops start saying we kill the bad guy's and then make omelets, it's time that they come home. It is time for you to come home, and everyone that feels like you do. Your flipant remarks about life does not impress me even if it is about our enemy or those that choose to do us harm. We will defend ourselves, but don't shoot ourselves in the foot with arrogent remarks such as yours. As for the original subject, we got off of that a long time ago and I do not choose to discuss this subject in this forum again.

[Daniel Kangiser]

To all it may concern:
A question about certification got turned into an argument. I was not privy to some of the new ACF rules accepting military education, and experience towards certification. These rules did not exist when I tried to get certified as far as I know. I was mislead by my culinary school back in 1990 as they assured me all my military education and experience would count towards certification. The local ACF chapter would not accept my military education or experience back then. In essence they wanted me to start back at the beginning as a dishwasher or a prep cook, it didn't matter to them that I had been the Chef of the highest volume restaurant in the State, or served over 8 years as the Food Service Officer aboard ship in the United States Coast Guard. Their only criteria was certified education at the time. It seems the biggest critics of me are from the services, thank you for your support gentlemen. You now enjoy what I was never offered by the ACF. I missed the draft by 1 year during Viet Nam, yet I enlisted when I was 22 years old in 1979. When I was in high school everyone was worried about getting drafted as soon as they got out of school to fight a war that had been going on for years and had lost over 50,000 men and severly injured over 100 thousand men. Many family members had already fought or had been effected by that war. Our service members came home to spitting on them, I enlisted in that era when our country was desperate for personnel. Viet Nam Vets were treated with contempt and hatred. They were called baby killers and treated like the lowest of society. Our own turned against us and our heros in the prison camps, check out Jane Fonda's role and her treasonous acts she got away with.
Now when the Viet nam war is behind us for many years we forget those personnel who served valiantly, we forget the personnel that came before you in the times of peace who did not have to serve as you did. We also forget the personnel who lost their lives during peace time. Fact - It is dangerous to be in the military, and if we do not recognize that we are stupid. An example is a US Coast Guard C-130 collided with a Marine Hello this weekend, 9 people were killed the last I heard. Will they be honored by our people as much as somebody that was killed on a road in Afghanistan? I doubt it, we seem to value the men over seas more then the men that protect us at home.

[Daniel Kangiser]

Our President is now in an evaluation process of Afghanistan. He is trying to evaluate our position, our mission, our strategy for the region. The Republicans and even some of the Democrats say to just send more troops. Others say to pull back and concetrate on Al Quida instead of the Taliban.

We are spending over 10 Billion a month between both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, meanwhile we are in the deepest recession at home. Our own citizens are dieing, or going bankrupt for lack of health insurance, the 10 billion we spend each month on these wars could cover everyone with good health insurance. We have spent almost a trillion dollars sence these 2 wars began, thousands of personnel have died, and 10's of thousands have been injured which we will be paying for through the VA for the next 50 or more years.

War costs money, and the aftermath of war costs even more for years to come. We have lost several thousand men and debiliating injuries to 4 times that number. These men and women have traumatic brain injuries, loss of limbs, etc. This doesn't account for the number of personnel that will come back with PTSD but are physically healthy. Over 130,000 vets are homeless and sleeping on the streets this very day and many of them have PTSD, they have fallen through the cracks. They have seen and been through horrific things yet there was no physical damage. This is a national disgrace, we give more to the Afghan or Iraqi civialian then we give to our own Vets here at home!! It is an imbalance that every American should be ashamed of. Our Veteran Hospitals should be the best in the world, yet there is continual problems with both service, expertise, and malpractice.

There are over a hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan & Iraq at a cost of 10 billion or more a month. This same amount of money could boost our response to natural disasters, help give our Department of Homeland Security the funds they need to prevent attacks, increase our border patrols, enhance our ability to respond or prevent harm to any situation with strike teams, enhance our intellegence, fund research into new technologies that will help keep us safe.

Our Country will soon go bankrupt trying to sustain the outlays of our military complex. They will always say they need more men, and funds no matter what the situation. President Eisenhower warned of this in the late 50's about the military complex.

Our President is saying stop, and let's talk about this! You want 40k more men, why!!! I already gave you 20k plus just a few months ago. I am also sure that the President was frustrated with the general who made public his evaluation before he presented it to him. Shouldn't these evaluations have some sort of security clearance. The General should have been fired on the spot for such remarks to the public. It was an attempt at blackmail in the public forum as far as I'm concerned.

[Daniel Kangiser]

The events of this last week with the death of 13, wounding of over 30 personnel at Fort Hood in Texas, the loss of Marines and Coast Guard personnel in a mid air collision off the California Coast take precedent over any arguements or discussions we may have here in this forum. We all share this loss, but the families of these heroes need our support now. Our grief should be directed towards action to help support the families directly effected by these events.

There was an immediate response by the community of support when over 500 people gave blood in a single day just hours after the incident at Fort Hood. Don't let distance keep you from responding to this tragidy. Our response must be as a Nation, and we must band together as Americans to show we are one no matter where we are attacked.

I also know from experience that every civilian craft in the area responded to the SAR (search & rescue)response to the mid air collision of our Marine and Coast Guard personnel off the Coast of California. We must thank those fishermen and their efforts, and let them know their efforts are of extreme importance to the National Security of this nation. There is one thing about our fishing fleet, they will stop everything to save a life at sea!!!

There will be many funerals in the next couple of weeks and local Chef's have an opportunity to volunteer there services to the families of those effected. Please do so, and reach out to those in need!! Show everyone and the nation we care about all of our service personnel.

I also caution everyone to not assume guilt or innocence from media reports. His innocence is presumed by our constitution until proven guilty. This man was a Major in our Army, recently promoted as of July from what I heard. In other reports, he was transfered because of problems and unsatisfactory preformance, pass the problem down the line. He was also a mental health specialist, gee, did anyone ever think that counseling personnel coming back and speaking bad about his religion would have a negative effect on him. Six years of hearing this stuff, and the hatrid displayed by our personnel for his religion. He is of Jordanian decent, and openly Musleum yet he probably had to listen to how evil his brothers and sisters are. Do not assume that each and everyone of us would have done the same if our beliefs would have been attacked, our culture ripped apart by the very people you serve with. As a mental health professional he must have heard many horrer stories about his religion from our personnel, what an unfair position to be put in by our government. It doesn't matter what religion you are, faith exceeds national allegence in most situations for the truly faithful. I am Christian, I would find it very hard to accept if my government was attacking Christians in another part of the world, I would find it even harder if I was a mental health specialist counselling the people killing my brothers in Christ.

There is also another problem, who counsels the counselors. They probably get very little mental help. They can live through every story that is told to them, not physically but in their mind. They must listen to these horrible stories day after day, year after year, and don't think our men only tell about the best of times. Many times they are about the true nature of war, the child or mother that was innocent lost. These men spill their guts to these health professionals, and because they didn't have the physical shock of war we assume they are not effected by it.

Not that it matters because the Major has already been convicted by everyone, I find it hard to believe that 1 guy could kill 13, and wound over 30 others on a military base before being taken into custody. Who set the watch on this base? 40k personnel at risk and 1 guy wipes out over 40 of them. Some of it sounds like fraticide to me out of the chaos, and we should insist on a thorough investigation of this incident preferably by an outside source such as the Texas Rangers or the FBI. An internal investigation will only protect the failed policies of internal personnel.

Now, as for our medical personnel the field corpsman goes through the hell of response and war. Many times they are not being shot at, but the overwelming result of traumatic injuries that they have to deal with effect them psycologically. I will end this here for now.

[Daniel Kangiser]

As usual, several men from the Coast Guard were killed and 2 Marines. Last count it was 11 people that died a couple of weeks ago. As the Nation focuses on Fort Hood, and that tragedy, as usual Coast Guard losses are insignificant in comparison. A C-130 and a Marine Helo went down killing some of our best, yet minimal coverage by the media. Reported, and rarely talked about again because the Fort Hood incident happened about the same time. Our Men didn't have the President speaking at their Memorial, nor did the Nation hardly notice they sacrificed their life.

I will predict this, and I will be the first. Military services of the United States will be forced to take a support position behind the United States Coast Guard who are the experts in search and rescue. As the years go by global warming will be the threat against America, not the Russians, Al Quida, or Taliban. Millions will have to move inland along both Coasts within the next 25 years. Proven fact everybody!! Think about it!!!