I was in basic in 1961 and peeling potatoes was 'de rigueur'. I suspect it was because the potatoes back then were not as clean as the ones found in supermarkets today and it was probably easier and more sanitary to peel them. I never had to peel potatoes, but I still have memories of the poor bastard sitting out in back of the mess hall in the dark, surrounded by big pots, peeling potatoes.

My KP "1969" potatoes were all machine pealed - Now who remembers garbage duty on the Spaghetti Night. The next day the Pig farmer would show up to get his Free Food and those cans were bubbling. What a horrible smell.

These days they don’t even want you to grill for Soldiers unless you have taken some food handlers course

KP was before my time but I did work for a guy at Sears who said they peeled potatoes in the 80s.

Navy here; my KP duty during recruit training in '77 was cancelled due to me having the measles. I had been tagged to work in the meat locker, according to a shipmate that took my place. Ship and shore duty alike, I believe that they used the water devices discussed earlier.

Although I was "acting" Platoon Sgt. in basic training, I volunteered for KP on graduation day. Lots of recruits had family in attendance and I had none. Seemed like the right thing to do. Peeled lots of veggies! LOL

Guess I got lucky.... Basic training (aug 1968) was the assigned company truck driver so was exempt... AIT my name never came up.... Shipped of to Korea and we had civilian KP"s.... upon return to the states had attained rank of E-5 so was exempt from KP duty.... Then after becoming a Drill Sgt. had the honor of being the one who prepared the duty roster for several activities.. There was a proper way to prepare and it could be manipulated if need be. ................................. drill sgt.

Never had KP in my 3 years of active duty.
Got out, and joined a USAR unit, at the Div HQ level. My first weekend drill, I pulled KP, and spent the morning peeling potatoes for the lunchtime meal. I was a mite miffed, being a E-5 Sgt. I was set straight by the E-6 sitting next to me peeling carrots, who observed that all the junior (to us) ranks were scrubbing pans and mopping floors. That's the price you paid for being a junior NCO in a brass-heavy unit.

Only pulled KP that one time in the 3 years I was there.

I was in from 2000-2004
In '03 I was on ship and got detached for KP.
For the (very short) first bit they had us doing some of the food prep stuff.
This lasted until someone got in trouble because cooks are the only ones authorized to do that work.
From then on - scullery.
Soooooo many dirty plates/forks/etc..

Ft.Dix 1971. Never peeled a potato the had a machine. Learned quickly that where you signed in determined you job. (Last in got pots and pans.)
Day after graduation I got grabbed for KP. (My flight was in the evening.) Thought I could hide out but a guy squealed on me. I still remember his name,

Pulled KP for one day in Basic training, Jan 1973, Ft Ord. Spent a couple of hours quartering rotten potatoes to go into the slop bin that was for the local pig farmers and the rest of the day washing trays,pots,pans and utensils. Cleaning mess hall tables and floor plus serving on the food line. Never peeled potatoes for consumption.

USMC 97-2001

Never had “KP” as it’s known. When I was in boot camp our platoon won the drill competition which allowed us to choose our duty during “mess & maintenance” week. We all wanted mess duty for 4th BN, the women’s BN, but our Sr. DI picked maintenance over mess and told us that we’d understand why quickly.

He was right. That week was by far the easiest week of them all. I got put on a building renovation job with a civilian construction crew, almost all of which were former military, and those guys gave us sodas, cigarettes and food and didn’t make us do shit.

For the most part everyone in my platoon got a nice vacation that week.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve in PA:

No food prep for us. Cooks did that. We served it up, cleaned the cooking utensils or had garbage duty.

In boot, a handful of recruits rotated doing one week in chow. Not allowed to do food prep.
Like Steve said, serve, clean and garbage.
Got on the shitlist and all you did was garbage.

quote:

Originally posted by 0658:
USAF, 1966, Elmendorf AFB. When I had KP I seemed to get the Potato Peeling duties.

Being in the Air Force we were a bit more advanced; we had a washtub sized Potato Peeler. We put the Potato's in and it ground the outer skin off. You only had to make sure you didn't grind away too much.

Within a couple years they hired civilians in the Mess Hall, that was the end of KP for me.

LOL, yep! Same here. USAF 73-77.

OSUT at Benning in 1987. Cleaned a lot of plates and silverware, never peeled a potato.

Did two days of it during boot camp.
They likely made us do it to remind us where we would end up if we failed at our pre-assigned jobs. LOL

Never did KP. When they wanted to get us out our bunk just because we where in our bunk (think boot camp) we policed the area. That is picked up trash. Usually just one bag between 20 some pickers because no one trashed the base so it was a prize if you found something to stick with your sticker.

After Tech school there was non of that shit. We had skills.