When Army Pfc. Caleb Owen was growing up, he rarely got to spend Thanksgiving Day with his mother. As a pastry chef with her own small business, the holiday was one of the busiest periods of the year.

“She was always working,” said Owen, a culinary specialist stationed at Fort Carson.

“When she wasn’t baking, she did a lot of work with the Salvation Army. She made it very clear to me, from a young age, what she was doing, and I respected it. So when I grew up, I knew I wanted to do the same thing.”

Owen was one of 10 Army cooks — officially designated as “92 Golf” — who volunteered to carry on a decades-long Thanksgiving tradition. For the 37th year, Fort Carson culinary specialists prepared thousands of meals to be served to in-need individuals and families in Colorado Springs, Fountain, Woodland Park and Manitou Springs.

The 10 cooks showed up at the Fort Carson Culinary Academy kitchen just after midnight Monday with a monumental task before them: They had three days to prepare 220 turkeys, eight cases of green beans, six cases of stuffing and six cases of instant mashed potatoes.

“We worked for 19 hours on Monday,” said Spc. Kendra McCoy. “Then we went home, got some sleep, and came right back on Tuesday.”

“It takes a lot of work,” Owen said. “But it’s Thanksgiving, so we want to make everyone happy.”

Sgt. Maj. Kendra Knuckles, food service chief for the 4th Infantry Division, stressed that the soldiers were there because they wanted to be, not because they were ordered.

“Every soldier here has volunteered. That part is important to me,” Knuckles said. “They are here because they want to make sure 2,200 people, who might not otherwise get a holiday meal, have a good Thanksgiving.”

Cooking mass quantities of food can result in meals with an impersonal feel, said Knuckles, who has spent most of her adult life in military food service. So she allowed the junior cooks to add their own personal touches to the food whenever possible.

“I let them make a lot of their own cooking decisions,” she said. “I might make a suggestion or two, but this operation has mostly been theirs. They came up with a plan, and worked together to execute it.”

McCoy, who trained as a pastry chef before joining the Army, said she enjoyed the holiday cooking marathon.

“I love it. This is for a good cause,” she said.

“My family has always supported the Salvation Army, so this means a lot to me. I come from a town that really doesn’t have a lot. Services like this have helped my community, so it feels good to be able to give back.”

“Making sure that civilians, that we know need our help, have a good Thanksgiving — that means a lot to us,” Owen agreed. “If I wasn’t doing this with the Army, I would be doing it, somewhere, as a civilian.”

The Salvation Army and other local community organizations collected the food donations. But they lack the facilities, and the cooks, for such a large undertaking. That’s where the Fort Carson team comes in.

“We are happy to do our part to help the community,” Owen said. “Cooking is what we do, and we’re good at it, so I’m glad we can use those skills to help people who need it.”

In addition to dishing out thousands of meals at the stationary locations, Salvation Army teams deliver food to senior citizens and other residents who have difficulty leaving their homes, officials said. Salvation Army volunteers will begin distributing the meals early Thursday.