KP Duty

I think it is the general opinion that KP Duty in the military is some sort of punishment. I have seen it in many movies where they use it as such. I can tell you that when I was in basic, while we were at the rifle range, those who were doing the best were put on KP. I guess the idea was that they needed less training. I was one of the few from our company who got selected for KP for the entire time we were at the rifle range. The downside was that I had to get up at 3am to go over to the chow hall to be there for the start of making breakfast and all that this duty required. We broke dozens of eggs by hand. Ran the line, served the food to the troops and didn't get to eat our breakfast until everyone was fed and back out. The upside was that we got to eat as much as we wanted of anything there so I got to eat like 10+ slices of bacon and all the eggs that I wanted and so forth. Another plus was that after lunch service at about 2pm we were all loaded into a truck and driven out to the range so we could get our time in and didn't have to march out there when the company did every morning. I considered this to be a huge perk and that along with actually having time to sit and enjoy a big breakfast made getting up so early for me. They wouldn't let us cut up the potatoes used to make the potato salad with sharp knives. They were not allowed to give us anything we might use to stab each other. We didn't have to peel the potatoes, they had a huge machine with what looked like sand paper inside it, you dumped a 50lb bag of potatoes in, turned on the water, closed the lid and let it run for a couple of minutes. When we opened the lid, they were all peeled. Cutting them up was different though. They gave us butter knives. It took forever.

Meals Ready to Eat

While we were in basic we had to carry our rucksacks every where we went. Even though we were only issued 4 sets of BDUs the Drill Sgt. made us carry one set of uniform, socks and undies, you know, just in case we were at a training site and got dirty or wet so we could change into them. One particular day we were out and it had been raining. The ground was wet and there were puddles everywhere. This was the day we first learned to low and high crawl. We were all very wet and muddy and we stayed that way. In fact we never ever, no matter how wet and muddy we were, we were never told to change. One thing we did do that day was have our first MRE or meal ready to eat. Mine was BBQ beef slices. We at them cold and instead of being slices like it said it was one big hunk soaking in BBQ sauce. It came with dehydrated pears which we all ate dry and this chunk of cardboard called a cracker with the worst squeeze cheese in the history of mankind. That was one of the better MREs they had at that time. They had just come out and I was lucky that I didn't get the ham and turkey loaf or the even more dreaded dehydrated pork patty. Once in the field at my radio school I got beans and franks for 5 days straight on a random draw from the box of assorted MREs. I was the luckiest person on earth.

Don't think about not putting what you are told into your rucksack though. I had a private in my platoon who thought she would get over and marched around with it empty. We went to the bayonet course and as is the way we took off our rucks and set them up in perfect formation. The DS came along to decide that the formation wasn't perfect after all and made the discovery that her ruck was empty. Aw hell. She got to fill it up with gravel and march around with that for the rest of the day. Don't ever walk around with your canteen half empty either. Esp. if you have a long way to march and it is a hot day. Lessons learned in another life.

My barracks in AIT

Brems Barracks, Fort Gordon. I went to AIT there for 31C Single Channel Radio Operator, Delta 361st Signal Bn, 15th Signal Brigade. It was at the height of summer and there was no AC. The March to class daily was long and dusty. I hated every minute of it and could not wait for it to be over so I could move on to my permanent duty station. Instead I was chosen to continue on to an ASI school for satellite communications. I would do it over again in a minute.