Military Dining Out History

The dining-in and dining-out have represented the most formal aspects of Air Force social life. It has served the Air Force well as an occasion for military members to meet socially at a formal military function. It enhances the esprit de corps of units, lightens the load of demanding day-to-day work, gives the commander an opportunity to meet socially with their subordinates and enables military members of all ranks to create bonds of friendship and better working relations through an atmosphere of good fellowship. As with most ancient traditions, the origin of the dining-in is not clear. Formal dinners are rooted in antiquity, from pre-Christian Roman legions to second century Viking warlords, to King Arthur’s knights in the sixth century, feasts to honor military victories and individual and unit achievements have been a custom.
The custom was then taken up by the early universities and eventually adopted by the military with the advent of the officers’ mess. With the adoption of the dining-in by the military, these dinners became more formalized. British soldiers brought the custom to colonial America, where it was borrowed by George Washington’s continental army. The Air Force dining-in custom probably began in the 1930s with General H. “Hap” Arnold’s “wing-dings.” The close bonds enjoyed by Air Corps officers and their British colleagues of the Royal Air Force during World War II surely added to the American involvement in the dining-in custom. Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold (June 25, 1886 – January 15, 1950) was an American general officer holding the grades of General of the Army and General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps (1938–1941), Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, the only U.S. Air Force general to hold five-star rank, and the only officer to hold a five-star rank in two different U.S. military