For the first four-to-six months a soldier is in the Army, he is in "entry-level" status.  This period of time includes a "processing" week or so at a "Reception Station", Basic Combat Training (BCT) for about two months, and Advanced Individual Training (AIT), also about two months.  Some specialty-producing schools are longer, some not so long, and some guys don't even go to a school after basic training;  they go to a unit and learn a trade "on-the-job" (not so much anymore).  In any case, during this "entry-level" period, the soldiers are treated a little differently than they will be when they are absorbed into the regular Army.  For one thing, they are not allowed to be "stressed" excessively.  For a lot of them, just being in the Army and learning the basic skills taught at BCT is stress enough.  But the old image of the Drill Instructors pushing and punching and severely harrassing the new recruits is a thing of the past, for the most part.  One of the complaints that is often made by instructors at the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) schools is that there is never enough time to train.  MOS schools are where the AIT takes place;  in other words, where soldiers learn the jobs they will be doing in the Army.  I was an instructor at Army truck driving schools three different times in my career.  I loved the job, but as I pointed out, it is difficult to train someone to be an efficient driver when you spend half of the day marching to and from the mess hall or the barracks, stopping training when the windchill gets too cold or the wetbulb gets too hot, or when it is raining/snowing/blowing/etc, etc, etc.  Well, that is the subject of another article coming soon.  This article isn't about training time, directly, it is more about lunch time.  You'll see.
MamieLady arrived in March of 1976.  I was a buck sergeant; an instructor at the Fort Ord truck driving school, and ecstatic that a little girl had joined the clan...after three boys.  I was fortunate to be able to come home for lunch on a lot of days:  whenever we were in the motor pool for training or the students were off doing something else.  The Drill Sergeants would pick the students up from the motor pool at about 1115 and march them back to the barracks so they could have their hour and a quarter or so for lunch.  Then they would march them back to the motor pool after lunch and turn them back over to us at about 1300 to 1315...depending on what schedule they were on for that day.  Since I only lived ten minutes from the motor pool, I could dash home for lunch, play with the baby, make a trip to the shoppette that was near the house, or doodle around in the PX before I had to get back to meet the students.  It was a pretty good gig.  
On one particular day, when I got home for lunch I was hankering for a hot dog and found we didn't have any in the house.  So I made a speed run to the shoppette and picked up some dogs and buns and dashed home and fired them up.  The trip to the shoppette caused me to have to push it a little to get back to the motor pool on time, but I made it.
The students were just marching up to the spot where we took over from the Drills  as I pulled into my parking place.  Made it!  The transition was made with the usual report from the Class Leader (a student who was appointed to be a student leader) giving us the number of students assigned, the number present, and where the balance were.  Then there was the Impressive Milling Around Ceremony that precedes every military formation.  While milling, one of the students pointed out that I had something on the side of my hand.  I looked and found a dried blop of mustard that had somehow got missed when I left the lunch table.  I stared at it carefully for a moment as if it were a mystery to me, poked at it with my finger, then acted as if a light dawned in my brain and I said, "You know what I bet that is?  I had to change the baby when I was home;  I'll bet that's baby poop."  Most of the students were pretty young and few of them had kids of their own...needless to say they were grossed out by that pronouncement.  But their reaction was universal and priceless when I raised my hand up to my nose, sniffed it, then licked the blop  off.  "Yep...baby poop!"  
To their credit, none of them chucked...but it was a close thing for a few of them.