I used one of my army-acquired skills today

[gmerkt]

My grandson asked me if I could fix his music stand so he could practice clarinet. One of the original rivets had pulled through. We took it down to the garage and I fixed it with a Pop Rivet.

Although I didn't train in Pop Riveting, I learned it by accident at AIT. When I finished my AIT early, they couldn't just let me go. I had to wait for the next graduating cycle. So in the meantime, they had me in holdover status and would detail me out on post as free labor. One day, I was sent out to work with a civilian employee at post engineers. The work that day was repairing window screens and screen doors. Many of which had been trashed by drunken soldiers. These were aluminum framed screens, the old Mexican whom I was working for introduced me to the Pop Rivet system that day. It was a good lesson for the future. I've used Pop Rivets for many small metal repairs over the years.

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[gmerkt]

I should add, this was at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Our company area consisted of WW2 era barracks that had originally been built to house the personnel of the post hospital. Our training rooms were old hospital wards. I didn't realize this at the time, but many German POW's had been housed at Fort Huachuca during WW2. In our area, there were many little masonry projects, such as walls and borders along walkways, etc. Only in recent years did I find out that these were projects that the German POW's had been set to during their stay. When I was visiting in the area in 2006, the WW2 buildings were all gone. But many of the little rock structures that the Germans built could still be seen here and there.

 

[gryghin]

Pop Rivet use is a good skill. I learned in the Submarine Force while my boat was in dry dock for scheduled overhaul. I found out funny that on modern nuclear submarines, we use something that has been around since we first started using machinery.

What is really funny, the Air Force still use the same technology for modern planes.

 

[pharmseller]

I thought this was going to be about the best way to peel a potato.

 

[gmerkt]

I remembered I had a few poor quality pictures from Fort Huachuca.

This was our company area, with the one story orderly room/ supply room on the right. First barracks in the row at center.


This one was taken out the back door of my barracks, looking off to the south. You can see some rock work around the pathways, that's some of what the German POW's built during WW2. Which at that time was only 24 years before I was there.


More of the rock work may be seen in this picture. I don't remember all the guys names I was with, but I remember where they were from. The man on the left was from Clintwood, VA. Center, he was from Lynchburg, TN (where Jack Daniels comes from), and that's me on the right. I've got their names written down somewhere, but it would take me a month to find the information.




Same two guys on the left and center, guy on the right was Schwartz from Richmond, CA.



In this picture, Schwartz and one of the other guys are hassling Souza, who was from Fresno, CA. It can be seen in this picture that the barracks buildings were arranged in a herringbone pattern. Way in the background was the old WW2 hospital area. One story ward buildings all connected together by miles of covered corridors.

 

[gmerkt]

I thought this was going to be about the best way to peel a potato

Oh no, at Fort Ord, we had machines to do that for us. A big rotating drum with some kind of abrasive coating inside. You'd dump in 50 pounds of potatoes, turn it on, turn on the water jet, and it did most of the work. Only the worst eyes remained for hand work. BUT: If you were inattentive and left them in too long, they might be reduced to the size of marbles.

I'm VERY familiar with KP in the army.

 

[gmerkt]

I thought I would hi-jack my own thread here for a minute. On the subject of KP, or "Kitchen Police." The one place in the States where I was in something newer than WW2 barracks was my first stop, at Fort Ord. I was in the three story concrete buildings on the hill, built around 1954. KP was basically scullery duty, all the crappy, cruddy jobs in the mess hall. Which is now called a "dining facility."

Our charge of quarters runner would come around in the barracks at 0430 to wake up the KP's of the day. We had minutes to get dressed and down to the mess hall. The guys who reported first got to sign up for the better jobs. Like DRO, or dining room orderly, guys who served meals to the cadre. It went all downhill from there. My quarters were on the third or top floor of the barracks. The CQ runner would start on the first floor and work his way up. Being on the third floor, I got last pick of anything in the mess hall. Which usually was "pots and pans man." Where you cleaned and washed all those big shiny things the cooks used to do their magic. Like huge, aluminum sheet pans that they used to cook roast beef. With a half inch thick layer of grease all over except for four burned-on spots where the roasts actually sat on the pan. Everything was big and greasy. To combat these horrors, you had all kinds of hot water and soap. And it just kept on a-coming for 14 hours straight. The only single good thing about being pots and pans man was, it was off in a corner by itself and the nature of the work was such that nobody came over and bothered you so long as you did it right and stayed at it.

The thing that rankled me most about KP was the inequity of it. The cooks worked two shifts. First shift would come on with the KP's at about 0430, and stay until about 1300, when they were relieved by the second shift. I think there was about an hour of overlap of the two shifts. Those guys stayed on into the evening until everying was squared away. BUT, those poor KP's started with the first shift and ended when the second shift was done. It made for a very long day. If it's an equitable situation you're looking for, the army isn't the place to find it.

KP was particularly bad in BCT because of the nature of hazing that was part of just about every aspect of the training. To get you into shape, as it were. The cooks weren't left out of this, they might have been only Private E-2 or PFC themselves, but some of them lorded over the trainee KP's something awful.

One of my pals was drafted and sent down to Fort Hood as a permanent duty station. Their had their rota on the duty roster for KP. He was a PFC forever, always pulling KP duty. He looked forward to promotion to Spec. 4, because E-4's didn't have to perform KP. Then there was a mass of promotions, most of the PFC's got promoted to E-4. You can guess the rest, with this development, the 1SG no longer had enough E-3's to fulfill the requirement for KP's, so all the E-4's were added to that duty roster and kept pulling KP.

 

[Mikej]

Really enjoy the stories. Thanks!

 

[Certaindeaf]

Riveting.

 

[Ruger Rich]

I did Ft Ord BT in Dec 1965 and Jan 1966.. I was in Head 3-1 at the very top on the far right. Menenjitus (spelling) was everywhere
when I went through. We were restricted to the company lawn and building except for training. I recall trying to get breakfast and
having to transverse the horizontal ladder to get in. The damn bars turned and were covered with frost early in the morning. I dont
remember ever getting the whole breakfast down.

 

[gmerkt]

We were restricted to the company lawn and building except for training.

This was still true in 1969. When they issued our new uniforms, there was a white cotton strip above our name strip. On that white strip was written our BCT company, in my case, B-3-4. This was to aid the cadre in enforcing "unit integrity," that is, being able to spot anyone who was out of their area. This white strip was called the "Maggot Patch."

The meningitis scare at Fort Ord was in national news in the 1960's. There was some talk that the design of the hospital wards was such that they harbored lingering meningitis germs, which can be bacterial or viral in nature. In the 1960's including my time there, the hospital at Fort Ord was a WW2 relic, with the separate wards connected by miles of exterior corridors. The ward room interiors had squared corners, I remember hearing on the news as a teenager that proper hospitals should have 45 degree corners, ha ha, I've never seen any hospital with those.

It wasn't just Fort Ord. When I was cadre at Fort Leonard Wood, we had a trainee come down with meningitis, wow that set off a huge panic. It was a very big deal, all the bunks had to be re-made head to foot. Sneeze screens using ponchos had to be set up on every bunk. The parents of this Georgia National Guardsman who was on active duty for training rushed up to see their son. He came through okay, I can almost but not quite remember his name.

 

[tac]

Back in the Fall of 1967, when I was undergoing my recruit training at Poperinghe Barracks, Wokingham, Berkshire, I only had to do KP duties once. Starting at 5am, we had to get the breakfasts started for around 650 people - no big deal by US standards. I learned a lot about the mass-production of food that day.

One of the things that has stayed with me was the mass-production of scrambled eggs in a HUGE scrambled-egg machine that produced around 40 pounds of the stuff in one operation. Note that large scale production of this foodstuff did NOT involve the use of eggs as we understand them, Jim.

Instead of lovely brown ovoids, we were using powdered eggs - a WW2 American invention, I believe - produced from a kind of powdered chicken, I guess.

The Sergeant Chef beckoned me over - whilst applying with great vigour, a HUGE wooden spoon - and looking around, produced a small plastic jar from his apron. If you ever tell anybody about this, I'm going to come after you with a cleaver, and so saying, opened up the jar and delicately shook some of the the contents into the scramble mix.

The stuff looked familiar, as it should - it was fragmented eggshell.

The lads like to bite a bit of eggshell now and then, said the sarge, makes 'em think it's the real deal egg-wise.

 

[Mephistopheles]

There was one positive remembrance of KP for me, and we are going back 56 or 57 years ago. The potato peeling machines did a fair job, but there were still eyes and dark spots that had to be cut out of almost every peeled spud. They would sit three or four of us down around these large tubs, some filled with "peeled potatoes" and some empty. We would all be handed a small knife and would each pick one potato at a time and cut these eyes and dark spots out of it and into the empty tub it would go. This would take some time and was an excellent arena of "Bull Sessions". Guys would tell stories of home, their lives before the Army and their plans after they got out. I was a 17 year old naive surfer kid from Southern California and received a real education at those potato peeling parties.

 

[Stomper]

Riveting.

I have a pop-rivet gun that I named "Weasel"…. and yes, I habitually whistle "that tune" when I use it.




My grandkids are soooooo gonna love me. LOL

 

[Mikej]

Great stories guys!

 

[coop44]

This was still true in 1969. When they issued our new uniforms, there was a white cotton strip above our name strip. On that white strip was written our BCT company, in my case, B-3-4. This was to aid the cadre in enforcing "unit integrity," that is, being able to spot anyone who was out of their area. This white strip was called the "Maggot Patch."

I was in B-3-3 in '74. All of the cadre were airborne rangers and 'nam vets, Things were not easy. We were in the new 3 story barracks though. Running back and forth to the beach sucked, and it was cold, in june and july! First and last time I volunteered was as a range guard on the beach, 12 hours in the fog and mist.

 

[gmerkt]

I was in B-3-3 in '74. All of the cadre were airborne rangers and 'nam vets, Things were not easy. We were in the new 3 story barracks though. Running back and forth to the beach sucked, and it was cold, in june and july! First and last time I volunteered was as a range guard on the beach, 12 hours in the fog and mist.

The "New Barracks," yes, new in 1953 or 54. But new-er than the many WW2 structures built in 1940.

I was there in 1969. What I didn't know and therefore could not appreciate at the time was learned later. During the Vietnam war era, assignment for career soldiers to training establishments was typically a career-ending experience. Meaning, colonels assigned to command brigades weren't going to get their star. Lieutenant colonels assigned to command battalions weren't going to get their eagle. Company commanders were captains who were being passed over for major or were getting out. Career enlisted soldiers wanted to be in line units where real soldiers plied their trade, not training "putrid recruits" (to paraphrase Col. von Scherbach in "Stalag 17"). And of course, there were tons of Vietnam returnees, mostly 3 year RA's who had time left before their enlistment was up and they were finishing out their time. All of which doesn't make for a very morale-inspiring lot. In general, not all of them. The young lieutenants, they were exceptions, ROTC officers fulfilling their service obligations and many of these were going on to someplace else in the "real" army.

The BCT company I was in, there were five platoons. Four of those were led by young Vietnam returnee infantry buck sergeants. Who were all getting out. Their standards were not as high as the one platoon that was the exception. The one I was in. Led by a PSG (harder stripe E-7 than SFC) with the Combat Infantryman Badge with two stars. Meaning, he had been a boy soldier in combat at the end of WW2, fought in Korea, and then fought in Vietnam. This guy was tough and it was reflected in how he conducted training. But even this guy must've had his service ups and downs, he was still an E-7 after what must've been close to 26 years service (he was likely soon to retire). Maybe; this was still a time when it was possible to retire as a 20 year private. The "up or out concept" didn't come about until later. In my unit in Vietnam, we had an old alcoholic Spec 4 who had nearly 20 years in. Some of those guys, you could see the shadow of higher grade stripes on their shirt sleeves. They would go up and down the ladder in rank. They'd get sober for a while, then in one especially drunken binge, blow it all and get busted down to Private E-Zero. Repeat process.

Guard duty training, I remember that. I was sent out to guard some vacant building, I have no idea now where on post it might've been. It was at night of course, I didn't see one swinging Richard the entire time, which may have been a couple of hours. The run-up to guard duty was learning the general orders, challenges, etc. Then when I got to Vietnam, nobody ever asked if you knew the GO's. Knowing challenges, now that was important to keep from getting shot. Even in the rear areas where I served, it was improvidential to approach a bunker on the perimeter from the rear at night. It might contain a couple of jabronies who's been smoking weed (or worse) and at any given moment didn't even know where they were. During my time, we had one fatality in my battalion that way.