I really enjoyed my basic training. I remember well when each platoon had one day a week on fatigues. Our platoon drew kitchen fatigues. We went down to the kitchen and reported to the Sergeant Cook. I was put in a room peeling potatoes, onions and three sacks of carrots plus a sack of onions. I am sure we all felt we would be there till the end of basic training. The Sergeant then demonstrated the peeler. Standing to one side of the room was a large pot bellied peeler, which I had thought, was a pot bellied stove. We were shown how we could fill a bucket full of potatoes, toss them inside the peeler, close the door, turn on the tap water and throw the switch. The peeler began to spin rapidly, quickly peeling the potatoes and washing the peels away down the drain. I was truly impressed by such a time saver. When they have peeled, said the Sergeant, just turn the water off, hold the bucket up to the door when you open it, and it will fill with potatoes. Don't forget to shut the switch off before you load it again. With those wise words of instruction she left.
We all sat down to talk of this and that. Finally we could hear a ping, ping, ping. How long did the Sergeant say we had to let the peeler run? No one knew, so we shut off the water, held the bucket up to the door and … a pile of little white marbles lay inside the bucket. Throw them back in with the next load someone said, and open the door sooner. By a bucket or two, we got the hang of it!
Next came the onions, which could not go into the peeler. After a very tearful beginning, yours truly thought of our eye shields, which had their own pocket in our respirator, which hung at the foot of our bunks. I went upstairs and collected one pair for everyone. We proceeded to finish peeling the onions. The eye shields worked very well, very well until the Sergeant came in. "What have you got on your heads?" she screamed. Gosh she must be dumb I thought, doesn't she recognize the eye shields when she sees them? Well, the end results, another day of fatigues in the vegetable room for the lot of us.
It seems if it is not written in Part 1, or Part 2, Orders, YOU DON'T DO IT!
