When I reported to Air Force basic training on June 15, 1966, I was a 19-year-old college dropout. Despite two years of college ROTC, I really had no idea what to expect.
The first few days at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, consisted of brutal heat, a blur of shouted commands never executed correctly, endless marching from one place to another, screamed instructions to get organized, get in line, get in formation, move faster, fill out this form, listen to this lecture, eat quicker, sleep faster.
And do it all again.
At the end of one very long day, just before lights out, we were formed up, yet again, and told that the following morning at four we would start a week of KP, kitchen police, mess duty. After being roused at 3:45 a.m. and marched quietly across a dark, hot, silent base to the rear of the chow hall, our cadre turned us over to a mess sergeant and departed.
We were told to be at ease, perhaps for the first time, and it came as a bit of a shock. We could relax in place and even talk if we wanted. It was literally the first unsupervised, unstructured period since we had arrived.
I had noticed the recruit next to me several times during the previous several days. He was a slick-sleeve like the rest of us, but that is where the resemblance to any of us stopped. His uniform was a slightly different, lighter shade of green than the rest of ours. His hair was just a bit longer than the rest of our bald heads. He knew how to march, how to organize his locker, and how to make his bed perfectly. He always seemed to know what was going to happen next and was completely prepared for it.
The strangest thing though was how the instructor cadre treated him. They never screamed at him and never seemed to need to correct him. At one point, I even saw him have a brief conversation with one of the drill instructors.
I was curious, so I asked him. He told me to mind my own business.
We were called back to attention and marched into the kitchen area where we were given a lecture about the rules for KP duty, everything from hygiene to safety. Then we were told that we would be assigned to various duties and what they entailed. We were once again put at ease, and my slightly different recruit must have felt bad about telling me to mind my own business. He told me his name was Greg. I introduced myself as Ed. And just then we were called back to attention by a mess sergeant with a clipboard.
Everyone whose last name began with A-through-G would form up to his left under the command of Sergeant X, he advised us. And all those H-through-Z would move to his right under Sergeant Y.
As we waited for that command, Greg stage-whispered to me, "Stick with me."
"Do I have any volunteers for pots and pans?" the mess sergeant shouted.
First of all, no one knew what "pots and pans" meant. But, more importantly, this violated the first rule of military life: Never, ever volunteer for anything. I don't know where or how I learned that bit of military lore, but I knew it, and apparently so did everyone else. Dead silence. That is until my new best friend sang out in a loud voice, "two back here, sergeant." And with that, the mess sergeant bellowed, "Fall out," and that's how I was assigned to pots and pans.
Over the next seven days, I got to know Greg quite well and I learned several valuable life lessons based on "pots and pans."
Greg was known as a retread. Almost a year to the day before my basic training began, Greg was slightly more than halfway through his basic training. Like me, he was also a college dropout who had enlisted, and he was performing at the top of his recruit class when during yet another run through an obstacle course in a torrential rainstorm he landed badly and fractured a bone in his ankle.
A surgeon operated and inserted pins in Greg's foot to align the bones. His recovery and rehabilitation would take several months, so the decision was made to medically retire him. But Greg did not want to retire. He filed a request for reconsideration and was told it could take several months for this case to be reviewed. They assigned him to the base hospital to convalesce and to wait it out.*
Only, Greg did not sit idly by. He doubled and tripled up on his physical therapy schedule and pushed his therapists as hard as he pushed himself. He sought out doctors to understand what had been done to him and what he could do to heal faster and better. He finally found a doctor willing to remove the pins when the healing was complete.
But Greg did much more. He got himself up every morning and hobbled to the training command headquarters. He would start the coffee up and do a dozen small tasks that he learned needed to be done every morning when the cadre turned up to start the training day. He didn't ask anyone's permission; he just showed up and did it.
The cadre slowly came to rely on him as a resource and more importantly respected him for his initiative and dedication. When his review was scheduled the initial medical finding that he should be medically retired was upheld. But that is where the training cadre stepped up and intervened on Greg's behalf.
The doctor who removed the pins from his ankle also became his advocate and recommended he get an opportunity to demonstrate that his injury was completely healed and that he could perform all required military functions. Greg passed the test and was reinstated to full performance active duty.
There was only one problem. Greg had to start basic all over, and that is how he ended up in our unit.
Pots and pans was the dirtiest, nastiest job in KP. It involved hauling, scraping, scrubbing, disinfecting, washing, and staging a vast array of large, heavy metal pots and pans among storage units, the kitchen, the washroom, and the "pit."
Some of these pots were three feet wide and four feet tall. We were given heavy rubber boots, aprons, gloves, and eye goggles. Our work began immediately as we were handed an inventory and told to load pots and pans on huge carts and deliver them to various stations in the kitchen. By the time we got them all delivered it was time to go back and retrieve the dirty, hot, and steaming pots and pans and run them over to the pit. That's where we used an assortment of brushes, scrapers, and high-pressure hot water hoses to dislodge anything that was stuck to the bottom or sides of the pots and pans and shoveled it all into the pit.
We then took them to what can only be described as a walk-in dishwasher where we hung the pots and pans on specially molded hangers, shut the door, and hit the wash cycle. Several minutes later, we removed the pots and pans, inspected them, and returned them to their assigned storage space.
But there was still one more notorious job involved with pots and pans detail. The grease trap in the bottom of the pit had to be cleared and cleaned after each meal. This involved climbing down a ladder and shoveling the largest chunks of whatever survived the steam hoses into trash cans and hauling them out to bins behind the building. The final step was to attach a cable to a hook on the grease trap itself, haul it up, and hit it with the high-pressure steam hose until the remaining sludge was dissolved. Only then could we call for one of the NCOs to inspect our work and sign off on our detail.
Why would anyone in their right mind volunteer for such a job?
Well, for Greg, there was a method to his madness, and for me several lessons to be learned. First, no one messed with the pots and pans detail as long as it got done right and done on time. So no yelling and screaming. Second, when it was done, the detail was over.
It took about three hours, beginning to end, of intense, dirty, difficult work but when it was over we were left alone until the start of the next meal cycle. For the rest of the KP work force one meal bled into the next without any breaks. We found a "coop site," a little spot behind a row of large pallets of field rations and kitchen equipment where, conveniently, several chairs and desks were stored. We could idle away the time between meal cycles while everyone else from our unit was performing endless make-work projects cleaning, washing, and polishing anything and everything in sight.
Greg had figured out military life. He knew what worked and what didn't. A positive attitude, enthusiasm, attention to detail, preparation, follow-through, and 100% effort always worked. He didn't know it, but he was giving me my first lessons in leadership: Above all, volunteer for everything. Even pots and pans.
Edward Meagher is a Vietnam service-disabled veteran who retired after 24 years in government, 26 years in the private sector, and four years in the U.S. Air Force. He served for seven years as the deputy assistant secretary and deputy CIO at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He lives in Great Falls, Virginia.
This War Horse reflection was written by Ed Meagher, edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
Editor's note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
