The Lesson Learned....
I was scrubbing a pan in the kitchen tonight, finishing up the work Julie had started, when it all came back to me. Julie had done a good job on a baking rack and pan, but when I looked at the chrome finish I saw small stains, brownish discoloration and some grease spots. Nothing really, done well by anyones standards, but I knew the pan wasn't quite finished. There is something about an even slightly spotted pot or pan that takes me back and reminds me of one of the best lessons that I've ever had.
During the summer of 1969 I was in Army ROTC basic training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and one fateful day my turn came up on the KP roster. Kitchen Police. Slave labor. 24 hours in the mess hall with maybe a chance to catch 3 hours sleep on the 50 lb. potato sacks. Supervised by mess NCO's who were nothing to be trifled with. In that older army the mess NCO's were a class to themselves. Mean, surly and hard working. Few officers tried to pull rank on them. They did their jobs and they were left alone...a tough bunch who served some pretty damn good chow. But here I learned a lesson as valuable as any I have ever had.
One of my chores was to scrub and wash all the major pots and pans after the dinner meal. Not an insignificant amount of metal implements, large metal implements. Late into the night I scrubbed and when I declared myself finished I thought I had done a fairly good job. However when the Assistant Mess Sergeant did a cursory inspection he looked me right in the eye and said, "Private, that's the worse bunch of horsexxxx I've ever seen in my life, that's a half-ass job and you're a sorry piece of xxxx, do them all over again". Hot, exhausted and grimy, I was about to offer a "But Sergeant.....", when I took a look at his face, took a look at my work and said nothing. I did them all over again.
About 2 A.M. as I remember, the senior Mess Sergeant, an E-8, stopped by and asked why I was still at the pots and pans. I told him my sad tale. This grizzled veteran of Korea and two tours in Vietnam sat down with me and said this: "Son, you are training to be a United States Army officer. Probably you are going to be leading men into combat. Their lives depend on your skill, integrity and judgement. If you're willing to do a half-assed job on something as simple as scrubbing a pot, you're setting yourself up to do a half-assed job on the more important things, things that could get people killed. I hope you'll remember this".
And you know what Sergeant...to this day, 35 years later, I do.
I was scrubbing a pan in the kitchen tonight, finishing up the work Julie had started, when it all came back to me. Julie had done a good job on a baking rack and pan, but when I looked at the chrome finish I saw small stains, brownish discoloration and some grease spots. Nothing really, done well by anyones standards, but I knew the pan wasn't quite finished. There is something about an even slightly spotted pot or pan that takes me back and reminds me of one of the best lessons that I've ever had.
During the summer of 1969 I was in Army ROTC basic training at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and one fateful day my turn came up on the KP roster. Kitchen Police. Slave labor. 24 hours in the mess hall with maybe a chance to catch 3 hours sleep on the 50 lb. potato sacks. Supervised by mess NCO's who were nothing to be trifled with. In that older army the mess NCO's were a class to themselves. Mean, surly and hard working. Few officers tried to pull rank on them. They did their jobs and they were left alone...a tough bunch who served some pretty damn good chow. But here I learned a lesson as valuable as any I have ever had.
One of my chores was to scrub and wash all the major pots and pans after the dinner meal. Not an insignificant amount of metal implements, large metal implements. Late into the night I scrubbed and when I declared myself finished I thought I had done a fairly good job. However when the Assistant Mess Sergeant did a cursory inspection he looked me right in the eye and said, "Private, that's the worse bunch of horsexxxx I've ever seen in my life, that's a half-ass job and you're a sorry piece of xxxx, do them all over again". Hot, exhausted and grimy, I was about to offer a "But Sergeant.....", when I took a look at his face, took a look at my work and said nothing. I did them all over again.
About 2 A.M. as I remember, the senior Mess Sergeant, an E-8, stopped by and asked why I was still at the pots and pans. I told him my sad tale. This grizzled veteran of Korea and two tours in Vietnam sat down with me and said this: "Son, you are training to be a United States Army officer. Probably you are going to be leading men into combat. Their lives depend on your skill, integrity and judgement. If you're willing to do a half-assed job on something as simple as scrubbing a pot, you're setting yourself up to do a half-assed job on the more important things, things that could get people killed. I hope you'll remember this".
And you know what Sergeant...to this day, 35 years later, I do.
