We had fallen out in the Quad, and roll call had come and gone. The Company Commander said something in his always inaudible voice to the First Sergeant. This worthy saluted and spun about-face on his heels. There was certainly never anything inaudible about his voice!

He now spoke in lower tones – but at our distance back in the ranks we could still not quite make him out…

Soon, the four platoon sergeants wheeled about in turn, and returned to their respective platoons. Depp surveyed us – his charges (and his current burdens to bear in this Vale of Tears) – and rocked gently back and forth on the balls of his feet…

“Tonight’s Graduation Night for a bunch of Shavetails up in Officer Land,” he said. “Mess Sergeant up that way has called for “volunteers” (the Army’s ubiquitous word for you, you – and you – as chosen for anything by anyone with higher rank than you). “They putting the bite on Battalion, and the First Sergeant says he needs one man from each platoon here.”

“Now who would like to take this assignment?”

Silence – utter silence – from the ranks.

"What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.
"I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.

Well, okay, “ says Depp. (Pause). “I was wondering who then, might be the biggest chowhound in this here 4th Platoon?” I was rather unprepared for what happened next…

A murmur ran through the first and second squads – a mere whisper – but it swelled rapidly and others joined in… “Powell,” it began, and then gaining strength, “Powell!” “Powell is the biggest chowhound we got!” And lots of stuff like that…

“Alright! Alright!... Knock it off! (Pause). Powell: I want your sweet butt front and center! Now!”

I stepped out of ranks and stood in front of Depp. The warmth radiating from the back of my neck was not just from the Georgia sun full upon it: I’ll get even with these Yardbirds… just you wait and see, I was thinking. From the corner of my eye – sideways – I could see my counterparts each stepping forth in front of the other platoons.

“Now,” said Depp, “In case the rest of you thought you were getting the rest of the day off - here’s what I want: when you Fall Out – you get your tired asses into that barracks pronto and get your field packs and rifles and Fall Back out here On the Double”. He paused and smiled wryly – then dropped the other shoe: “This afternoon we are going to have advanced Bayonet Drill….!”

“Bayonet Drill?” the almost audible gasp arose from the owners of those same sixty pairs of heels. “Bayonet Drill!” Our cycle was in about its twelfth week I would guess – and to date nothing – nothing at all – had been so exhausting and disliked than Bayonet Drill. Hour after hour in the hot sun, jumping off berms and walls (“Daggone you men, you ‘sposed to make a three-point landing right on that Jap enemy! Your two feet hit the ground same time as your sticker gets him in the gut. (Pause) And I wish you would-a lookee here – at this Sad Sack excuse for a soldier (picking some hapless jumpee at large) – and him all a-tumble down the bank here and dropping his piece to boot…”).

(At such times, from deep in my place within the Barrel, I could hear the gentle sound of ‘Scrape!’ ‘Scrape!’ all around me…).

And so the platoons melted into the barracks behind us – and I and the three other anointed “Kitchen Helpers” stood to our duty in the bright sunshine. Overhead a hawk circled briefly then dove like a rock right into the Pineys on the edge of the Quad.

Soon the platoons reassembled behind us – no little grumbling and complaining going on with the heavy packs, rifles and steel helmets now. Not a cloud in the fair Georgia sky and the thermometer stood about mid 90’s I would guess. Windless. The Sergeants dressed them Dress-Right-Dress. And the host assumed the alignment of its elements so beloved of the Army. My back was to them so I couldn’t see but I heard Depp give the order: “F-i-x-x-x Bay’nets!” – and nearly but not quite, one loud “click” as the bayonets snapped home. We were getting better…

The Sergeants got the host into en filade at last and soon they swung into view marching off down the dusty Company street. Here and there sunshine glinted off a bayonet, and then the many-legged creature that is an Infantry Platoon melted into the Pineys and was gone.

"For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quickstep play,
The regiment's in column, an' they're marchin' us away;
Ho! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer to-day,"

It was hot. Real hot. The Quad simmered in silence and heat. The four of us stood fixed in our assigned spots where the now-vanished platoons had been. And waited.

"What makes that front-rank man fall down?" said Files-on-Parade.
"A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun", the Colour-Sergeant said.

Soon we heard a truck motor and here came the promised ¾-ton, turning in off the Main Drag through Wheeler to our neck of the woods. It stopped before each one of us and we each climbed in the back. There were five or six other guys already sitting on benches there – maybe about 8 or 10 of us in all. Probably, if one can put credence in the voting that had landed us all here, the single finest assembly of expert chowhounds in this man’s army, ever brought together in one place. It sort of gave one a feeling of pride… a feeling somehow of “belonging.” We bounced silently along.

A few miles further and we had entered the Officer’s training grounds at Wheeler. Nothing really told you this… it was sort of a silent metamorphosis or something: the barracks somehow seemed more substantial. Their paint jobs were surely better (kept that way, of course, by levies from the enlisted men’s ranks – which is why the enlisted men’s barracks lacked that certain spit-and-dash that these surroundings presented). There were even clumps of set-out shrubbery here and there. Rank has its privileges – or did, in those far off times.

The ¾ skidded to a stop behind a large and imposing Mess Hall. No one had to tell us what to do: we all jumped over the tailgate and lined up. Sorta like sheep. The back door swung open to the Mess Hall, and a Sergeant in a white apron, waved us to come on up on the porch. In his hand was a big butcher knife. It reminded me fleetingly of my platoon, with fixed bayonets, marching off to some distant Bayonet Range in another part of the Post. But I didn’t dwell on that very long.

We all filed up the stairs. The Sergeant looked at the group. Then in a scene which was repeated many times during my non-illustrious military career, he asked, “Anyone here who can read?” And true to life, as always, I spoke up: “I can,.” I said. “ Fine!,” he said. “You will be Back Porch Man today.” (It was a role I had played many times already in our own Mess Hall.. No surprises). You see, the Army I was in, was NOT your volunteers and reg’lars like today. Back in WWII, we were draftees – more almost like, if you would, conscripts – with most of the connotations that word has when used elsewhere – like, say, the “conscripts” that the French Government once sent to Devil’s Island. Well, almost anyhow. You see what I mean. No one was “prepared” for these military “careers” and no one really “wanted” them. Our “friends and neighbors” as they called themselves in the (unpopular) “Notifications” letter we all received from our local Draft Boards, did this to us. And that was that. And there was no appeal.

Anyhow, and for a variety of reasons, including the (now) deliberate “mixing” of troops from all over the Nation (to avoid high losses in any one community – remember the “Five Sullivans”…) many of us from better-heeled states and towns (where high school educations were no novelty) wound up cheek by jowl with farmers and backwoodsmen and others who had never seen the inside of a schoolroom! I kid you not! Most of my outfit at this time were from the backwaters of Alabama and Mississippi with a smattering of “coal crackers” from West Virginia and the mines of Pennsylvania. And the majority of them could neither read nor write!

Hence, I not only was ‘champeen chowhound’ but the resident man-of-letters (more anon) and I played my role to the hilt with proper solemnity and mien. I tell you, no more fateful decisions in life, all up to me for single word interpretations, were ever made since Socrates delighted in tripping up his fellow Greeks.

And how, now, was the Sergeant proposing to use these salutary skills of mine? Well, it was like this: behind all Mess Halls in those days, even here behind the Officers’ Mess, was a long row of galvanized garbage cans – maybe eight or ten you see. Set in wooden frames (painted O.D. of course) and absolutely aligned on each other (of course, of course). Over each one was a block-lettered sign. With words like “Edible; Non-Edible; Inedible (lol); Grease; Paper, Wires and Other (one of my favorites!); Glass and Metal; Bones; Non-Bones Cooked; Non-Bones Non-Cooked; Pig Farm ONLY; and "All Other." You get the drift I am sure. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

And that’s where the coveted role of Back Porch Man came in: you sat on the topmost stair, and when the illiterate KP crowd came through the doors with their tin trays, and pots and pans and slop pails, whatever – they first had to show it to you – and then you would indicate which one of the labeled garbage cans it was to be emptied into. Actually, it was not an unpleasant job at all! And (I am sure) you can already see how it could lead to abuse (by invocation of undue deliberation and the backing up of garbage lines, and grumbling and all), which led to the demotion of many erstwhile ‘readers’ back into the ranks. But I played my role with the dispatch of a true All-American Jack Armstrong and was moreover almost a fixture as Back Porch Man in our own Mess Hall.

And consider the alternatives: if something did not distinguish you as having special skills (ahem) when you were periodically scooped up for KP assignment, well, then you might wind up as a “Stove Man” doomed to polish and scrape and shine and clean and stoke and empty ashes out of the hot and glowing giant coal stoves in work very little inferior to that of a puddler in a steel mill. (And yes, “Ashes” too had to be passed under my nose for classification into the right can you see – for some Mess Sergeants distinguished what they called “Clinkers” and your ordinary “Stove Man” was incapable of making these more rarified judgments…).

Sometimes you got assigned as “Cook’s Helper” – and this hapless role is long familiar well beyond military circles, for the endless potatoes these Cooks required to be peeled by hand. And of slicing, dicing, and (occasional) icing there was no end. “Pot Wollopers” got stuck with dishwashing – a hot, dirty, wet job. If you were “ailing” but not on actual Sick Call, you might get assigned the lightest duty of all as “Table Server.” And here the job mostly consisted in constant running replenishment of ketchup and peanut butter in giant one-gallon cans (O.D. colored, of course). Of course. To the ravenous diners who sat about 10 or 12 to the table…

But Back Porch Man (there was only one to each crew) suited me fine. The competition was all but non-existent, and it really was a sort of entry or low-level “management” job in a way.

So anyhow – this Mess Sergeant says to me, on hearing my fine qualifications, “Great, Soldier! Then you just sit out here in the shade and keep these Yardbirds putting their slops in the right cans.”

“Piece of cake, Sarge, piece of cake,” I said.

He regarded me further, in a not unkindly fashion. “Say,” he said, “You wouldn’t know how to shell boiled shrimp now – would you?” His eyes smiled friendly-like and he waited for my answer. “Shrimp?” I said. “Boiled shrimp?” “ Oh, you bet Sarge – I’m an old shrimp plucker from way back…”

“Well, that’s just great,” he said. “You see for this graduation dinner tonight here, we had to boil up about a 100 pounds of shrimp for shrimp cocktails – for the shavetails” – he said – and laughed at his own joke. “But I gotta get someone started on pulling their legs and popping them out of their shells.“

With that he disappeared back indoors and a few minutes later returned with two guys struggling along after him with a giant aluminum kettle between them – and there must have been about ten million freshly boiled shrimp in this thing!

“Put it over here in the shade,” he said to the two helpers. And then he turned to me: you can shell them out while you are sitting out here. Then as an afterthought he said, “And of course, it won’t hurt a damn thing if you eat a few yourself if you happen to like them.” His eyes twinkled. But I guess I didn’t really need to tell you that, did I?”

He continued. “And listen,” he said. “We all got a long hot afternoon and evening coming up here, right? How about you think maybe,” – here he began to fish in his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of greenbacks – “maybe if I wuz to give you some money here you could maybe run up to the “Beer Garden’ (every post had one) and pick up 12 or 15 bottles of ‘3.2’ for the boys here?” With this he pressed the money into my hands. “Tell them up there it’s okay – it’s for Sgt. Mac down at the 4-0-1.”

"I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times", said Files-on-Parade.
"'E's drinkin' bitter beer alone", the Colour-Sergeant said.

Jeezul! A Mess Sergeant who stood treat to the KP’s! I couldn’t believe my ears. But I didn’t hesitate long you can bet – and was away and down the Company Street in no time. He was a nice old guy – maybe even 30-35 years old then – an old man, and obviously an old “reg’lar army” type. We still had 'em in those days. He had (as we draftees used to say) “…found a home away from home” long ago.

Later – as the sun set lower in the sky (and many shrimp had gone to their reward in the pleasant shade of the back porch of the 4-0-1 Officers’ Mess, washed down by sips of insipid 3.2) – we on KP were called in at intervals to eat supper. The shavetails were hard at it out in the dining hall – plates and trays a-rattle – and one of their number was trying to address the multitude – who seemed on the whole rather disinterested in speeches just then. They were having prime-cut tenderloins that night – I still remember that. The cooks were grilling them up on the open flames a dozen at a clip, non-stop. (Back in Civilian Country, the old-folks-at-home were on “Meat Stamps” and rationing and some folks hadn’t seen steak since the war began…).

But here, the orgy was non-stop. First shrimp (all you could eat whether in the dining hall or out on the back porch…). Then tenderloins. All you could eat. Those of us on KP grabbed clean trays from the steam table and wolfed down our share along with the rest. I remember so well, the dozens and dozens of uneaten steaks that (later) came by for presentation under my nose – and were duly directed by me to the “Edible” can for their final repose. (Back home they just tightened their belts I guess. I never really understood how all this rationing was “administrated” anyhow).The evening wore on. The stoves were cleaned out and began to cool. The shavetails banquet was grinding down – but there was yet one further treat in store: peach ice cream! The Mess Sergeants pulled container after container out of the freezers, and the Helpers scooped away like mad to dispense this largesse. Finally, the last surfeited shavetail departed for his barracks (or more likely a night on the town), and the KP crew bent to its duty in earnest to clean up the hall and swab down all around. The floor mopping brigade was already at it on the dining hall floor.

Around maybe 9:30 or so, the Mess Sergeants began to depart. The ¾-ton pulled up behind the kitchen and the driver sat with engine idling. The nice old Regular Army Mess Sergeant rounded up us various “volunteers” and said how much he had appreciated our help that day and we were now free to hop into the ¾ and be taken back to our respective outfits.

“But,” he said, “before you go, you guys are welcome to any of this stuff that is leftover… waving his hand at a few piles of uneaten tenderloins, a couple large containers of shrimp, and several fiberboard 5-gal. containers of the peach ice cream. We soon divvied up the loot. I got two ice cream containers – one under each arm – still mostly full, and a small sack of shrimp. I climbed into the ¾-ton and we were off.

They dropped me off in front of my barracks – mostly all dark now. I walked up the entry stairs, and pushed open the doors to the interior. It was largely darkened but a few lights were on. Mostly it was recumbent forms on their bunks – and no little amount of groaning with physical pain and exhaustion.

“Who’s that?” someone said. “Why – it’s Powell – our champion chowhound! Ha! Ha! Well, I bet you got your ass worked off today, right? Chowhound! Bet those big old Officers’ Quarters Mess Sergeants kept you guys moving! Ha! Ha!” This was followed by groans of extreme pain – the kind that can come only after great physical exertion under a full sun on a hot summer’s day.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says I. “It wasn’t really all that bad, actually. But how did it go with you guys? Did Depp have you parrying-and-thrusting till your arms were falling out of your sockets?”

“Well, Good Buddies”, I said. “ I can see that . I surely can. And I want you to know I was thinking about you guys all afternoon. While I was eating shrimp and drinking the Mess Sergeants’ beer, that is…”

“You were WHAT?”, intoned several voices at once.

“You heard me“, I said rather smugly. “You really should have been there – later we had steak for dinner…!”

By now a small group had assembled to hear of these wonders.

“So listen,” I said. “I really was worried about what old Depp might be putting you through out there, so ‘cause we are such good buddies and all (pause to let this sink in), I want you to know I have brought you back something.”

“Brought us something? Brought us what? Is it those cardboard containers under your wings?”

I drew myself up. “Gentlemen, those cardboard containers are full of ….peach ice cream! And if you will get your messkit spoons, it’s all…yours!” So saying, I set the containers down on the nearest bunk. Then I added, “And there’s a sack of peeled shrimp also – but you might want to be a mite cautious of how you eat the shrimp and ice cream and in what order… be’in as how you been outdoors working as it were in the hot sun all day … and don’t want to get the colic or anything like that…”.

They were speechless. I stripped and threw my fatigues on my bunk. Then, dog tags a-jingle, I headed for the latrine and a nice long cool shower. “By the way,” I said as I trotted by in my skivvies: “You guys can name me top chowhound any day going! Any day at all in this man’s Army!”

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