MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii -- At any given moment, you can walk into the Anderson Hall dining facility aboard MCB Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, and find a Marine working hard to make sure the next meal is ready when hundreds of troops pour in to be fed. Ask the food service specialists at Anderson Hall, and they will tell you what it is like to work on weekends and holidays, days and nights. "We start serving breakfast at 6 a.m.," said Lance Cpl. Joe Compton, a food service specialist at Anderson Hall. "We have to be at work at 4 a.m., to make sure the line is ready when Marines come in."Long and odd hours are not the only complication for food service specialists. Everyday, approximately 2,000 meals are made to feed Marines and Sailors from all over base. One food service specialist can find himself cooking 250 pieces of poultry at a time, while another makes sure several trays of manicotti are baked just right. On most days, 900 pounds of various kinds of meat are cooked to perfection, to include beef brogul, chicken teriyaki, beef porcupine or Salisbury steaks. "After we serve hundreds of troops, we are nowhere near finished," said Cpl. Edwin Collato. "After the doors are closed and the meal is over, we have to clean the entire kitchen to include floors, grills, table tops and the copper tables, which we prepare the food on."Although food service specialists agree that their job entails hard work, there is satisfaction in knowing that, at the end of the day, Marines come to them for a meal and a chance to unwind after work. "There is some satisfaction in knowing that you gave several fellow Marines something good to eat at the end of the day, and it really makes your day when some of them come up to you and tell you the food was good," said Collato. "Regardless of how hard we work, we know what we do is important and that Marines need us and the food we make to get through the day."The Marines who prepare the meals on a daily basis at Anderson Hall are constantly working together to ensure that when their fellow Marines come in for a well-deserved meal, every bit of food to be served is ready. Quite often when a Marine has a few minutes to spare before a meal, he will not take a much-needed break, but will assist another Marine who might have fallen behind in making a dish for the next meal."Something I like about my job is the fact that we all work together to make sure everything is ready on time," said Compton. "We know that if one Marine is not done when he needs to be, none of us are done. We often help out other Marines when they fall behind on a task."