Eating has always been a pretty social activity in the field army, going back quite a ways and no matter the type of rations. Old Army accounts stress small units (sets of four, platoons, squads) sharing food and cooking gear in the field. The transition to C-rats didn't change this dynamic much. If the tactical situation allowed the troops to get together to eat, they seem to have done so with great regularity. Ken and others could speak to actual field conditions in Vietnam, but most accounts I've read stress the "C-rat chef" in just about every small unit and the pooling of rations to make better (or at least more varied) meals out of the rations. This also tended to make units eat at more or less the same time (as allowed by the tactical situation). I'm not sure that this is necessarily recreated at the mess hall unless units march there in formation and eat in a similar manner. Again, based on anecdotal accounts (and plenty of civilian experience at campus dining facilities, which in some ways are mess halls....), an open mess tended to allow people to go in small groups based on friendship and not necessarily unit organization. You'd also get those who preferred to eat on their own and thus avoided the whole mess hall "experience."
But, as with most things like this, YMMV.
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