Foxholes and Dogtags

Kitchen Police

Note: this was written from my experience at the time going through basic training in 2000. From what I hear, KP is not something that is done in Basic Training anymore.

KP happens to everyone who joins the military. It doesn't matter what branch, you will do it.

I did it once, and hated it. Mainly because we were missing 'fun' training because we had to do KP.

So what is KP? Well, it's kitchen duty. You see, you go to basic training with all these people, they have to eat, so they are provided meals using the labor provided. It's a detail you learn to do, because chances are you'll pull KP duties later in your military career.

Actually, there's kind of two kinds of KP. The KP that is done out in the field (and doesn't really count), and the KP done in the Dining Facility. Some people love doing KP for several reasons. There is a Drill Sergeant in charge of you during KP, but he (or she) is usually relaxed and taking a break for the day. In other words, they are a bit more relaxed, and sometimes will even let you eat out of the fruity cake bar. The one time I had KP, the drill sergeant didn't let me touch no fruity cakes, but that's ok with me.

It also got you out of training for the day, and you couldn't get smoked.

The duties in KP are simple. You either serve on the chow line, wash dishes, prepare the preprepared food (usually consisting of the salad bar) or take out the trash (I was unfortunate to be stuck with this final duty, it sucked). Everyone kind of helps clean the D-Fac between meals, and the sooner its done, the more time you get to just lounge about. Sorry, no switching between duties, if your the garbage person, there's no way in hell your getting near that serving line (which is what I secretly wanted to do). As a 91S, I'd have your ass.

So anyway, you do this all day. It would be fine enough if it was during a normal class room exercise, where they brief you about Army Values or Consideration of Others training or some boring crap like that, but NOOOO! They nab you from the funnest training in Basic! And you don't get to make it up. Now that's what sucks.

My Platoon got the jip a couple times with KP. But then so did the others.

However, some people actually liked doing PT, but their just weird. Anyway, sometimes it wasn't mandatory to do KP, and they asked for Volunteers every once in a while. If nobody volunteered, they'd volunteer you. For some reason, I always knew when the Drill Sergeants were asking for volunteers for KP. You see, they often asked for volunteers for several odd jobs, such as unloading trucks, shoveling snow, stuff like that. I went out of my way to volunteer for these kinds of things so I wouldn't have to be stuck doing KP. This stuff I didn't mind so much. It only took you out of maybe a couple hours of training.

Of course, some of the time, they would just ask for Volunteers. If you asked what you were volunteering for, the Drill Sergeant would give you the Universal answer.
"Does it matter? Push."

I made it a point not to ask. I just happened to have a sixth sense about whether
it was KP or not.

Kitchen Police

0 Comments: