Kitchen Patrol and the Motor Pool

Everyone in the Army eventually pulls k.p. (Kitchen Patrol) It sounds very different than it works out to be. The name belies the fact that it means, you scrub a lot of dishes in the mess hall. Occasionally, the mess hall is in the field. Which is even more fun.

Well, I found myself for several days pulling k.p. out on a field problem (bivouac) and I was none too happy about it. Most of the time, it was only a day or two commitment, but at five plus days of scrubbing pots and pans and dishes in a heated trash can full of water, well, I was pretty much over it!

Now, this story isn't about k.p. It's about something I heard while there.

I heard there had been a terrible accident in the motor pool. It turned out to be more than rumor.

Our motor pool covered at least five acres of building and vehicles. Vehicles of all types. Trucks, jeeps, gamma goats and more.

Now, I never fired a gun in the army, but I was assigned to the field artillery. (Guns for you civilians, usually means cannons.) So, we had a half dozen or eight, I forget the exact number, artillery pieces kept stored in the motor pool. Anyway, there were some 105mm Howitzers along with some 155mm Howitzers. The latter were big as a small house. Incidentally, I was fortunate enough to see them in action on one occasion.

When I was finally relieved, I returned to the rear and enjoyed a long, hot shower, a hot meal with chairs and a fresh uniform.

Most of what I did involved driving so, I don't recall if it was on my initial return or, perhaps the next day, that I saw with my own eyes what all the talk was about. Yes, it's something I remember vividly.

At that time, at least in our motor pool, for any vehicle larger than a pickup truck, we were required to have a pedestrian walking in front of the vehicle until we could exit the motor pool. (I only dealt with this a very few times myself.) This, of course, applied to the trucks pulling the big Howitzers. I think their idea was to try to avoid any accidents in motor pool.

The story was told that a young soldier was walking in front of a truck pulling a big 155. He was just a soldier, minding his own business, following his orders. I don't know if they ever determined exactly what happened. It seems another vehicle was passing his vicinity and, somehow, he fell and landed under the wheels of the Howitzer. No, he didn't survive.

Well, the m.p.'s followed up with an investigation. I imagine they asked a lot of questions and filed a lot of paperwork. One, at least in my mind, bizarre thing they did was draw with paint a red outline of the deceased soldier's body. (You know, like in the crummy television detective shows.)

Now, oddly enough, only about half of our motor pool was paved. I don't know if there was any intent to complete paving it or not, but it was just that way for the year and a half I was there. Unfortunately and coincidentally, the accident occurred in the parking area that was paved. This meant that the red paint outline was more permanent that it might've been had the event occurred on gravel.

So, for the next year or more, the motor pool retained a macabre memorial to the poor waif who had lost his life in the line of duty in the DIVARTY (Division Artillery) motor pool at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

Here, it gets even more morbid. (Though ya might not think it possible.) In their desire to gather as much info about the calamity as possible, they not only outlined the poor soldier's body, but where parts of his head had splattered.

Yes, the story was that the cannon actually rolled over his head. This must've been accurate because there were little circles and big circles as much as, I suppose, twenty feet away from where the headless outline of his body was drawn.

I was fortunate enough to have never had to fire my weapon in anger and no one ever tried to kill me during my brief military service. I wouldn't in any way try to compare to what would be classified as a tragic auto accident to anything a soldier sees in combat. Still, I'll never live long enough to unsee that decapitated outline of a poor young man who, although surely ready and willing to go where he was sent to die for his country, could've never imagined that a routine trip to the motor pool would've cost him and his family so dearly that day.

I would always try, and usually succeded, to avoid walking or driving over that spectre emblazened there in the pavement.Sometimes, thought, it just couldn't be avoided.

Anytime after that, if I had a pedestrian guarding my way out of the parking lot, you can imagine how conscious I would be of him. Anytime after that, if I was the pedestrian guarding a vehicle on the way out of the parking lot, well, you can imagine how self-conscious I was.

If that was the point of military police in leaving that sad reminder in the asphalt for the rest of us to see every day, well, let's just say they certainly achieved their goal!