G.I. Blues 'Don't eat the pancakes.'

There I was. In the kitchen again. I had a lot on my mind. Young wife, infant daughter and oh yeah, Vietnam. Have any of you ever cleaned those huge stainless steel bowls? I guess bowls is the word, at least that describes the shape. I'd say their diameter was something in the order of three feet. If memory serves I washed about eight of them along with an assortment of pots, pans, and culinary accoutrements.

Thing is, you have to clean them with lye soap. Now, my information says this is manufactured by boiling down animal fat. Maybe, I don't know. I do know that after washing, the pots come out with a greasy film. After scalding hot water.

The mess sergeant was livid. Screamed, hollered making sure I was aware that the fate of the free world depended on my getting these things sparkling clean.

I washed them again.

Same result. Greasy, filmy pots and pans. This time the sarge was ecstatic. "Great job", he says. "You're gonna be a hellava soldier, " he praised.

The damn things were still greasy.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. It was later when IT happened. What was the code in "A Few Good Men. "  Unit, corp, God, country. I'm sure I got the order mostly wrong, but I'm sure unit came first. Keep that in mind.

I was taking something into the walk-in cooler. Balanced precariously on one of them big stainless steel cereal bowls I was talking about was a shallow tray of French dressing. This pan was probably about 18" by 36".and maybe 3/4 " deep. Why put dressing in something like that? And why stack it on top of the next morning's pancake mix? Not nearly as important as me brushing it and knocking all that tangy French dressing into the batter.

I consider myself an honorable man. I take my lumps, own up to my mistakes.

However,I am, or at least was, sane.

No way am I going to say. "Hey Sarge, I just knocked the French dressing into the pancake batter."

I did the only honorable thing I could do under the circumstances. I stirred the mix so nigh a trace of the offending dressing remained.

Of course, keeping the CODE in mind, I told all of my comrades in arms "DON'T EAT THE PANCAKES.

My platoon ate eggs. But we were entertained by the others, You have to eat fast in the Army.

All their faces screwed up in puzzlement as they ate their morning pancakes?

PRICELESS!

Some more Army blogs.
http://drewadamsauthor.blogspot.com/2014/06/happy-hump-day-wednesday-not.html
http://drewadamsauthor.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-i-spent-fourth-of-july-in-1972.html