MY WORST CHRISTMAS

          My worst Christmas happened in 1952 when I was stationed in the UK. I was sent to an airbase called Fairford. There they had K.P. (kitchen police) and everybody that was below the rank of sergeant had to take a turn at it. What it consisted of was going to the mess hall and washing dishes, washing pots and pans, peeling potatoes and cleaning up after every meal.

          You usually started at 5AM and got out at around 7PM. I usually went up the night before for the midnight meal and got the first pick of the chores. Now the best place to work was the garbage rack because it was light work and you got out early.

          On the day before Christmas (Dec. 24) my name came up for KP. I arrived at midnight ate the midnight meal and slept on the floor next to the boiler room until 5AM. Since I got up that early I got the garbage rack and waited for the end of breakfast to clean the garbage cans. This was done by hosing them down with steam to sterilize them. Everything went swimmingly until the last meal.

          As I was hosing down some cans I was not watching what I was doing and as the hose was rubber it flipped and the steam caught me under my chin. For a few seconds I felt nothing and then the pain started.

          Luckily the infirmary was a short distance away so I walked there and had my neck attended to. Again I was lucky because it was only a first degree burn so the doctor put a Vaseline compress on it and bandaged it up. I then went back and finished up and left for my barracks.

          When I entered there was nobody there. I was the only person there since everybody else was on leave or had gone to town. I was still in pain and dirty from sweating all day long doing physical labor. Since I had the bandage around my neck I could not take a shower and since there were no bathtubs I washed myself carefully with a wash cloth put on clean underwear and crawled into bed.

          As I lay there I could hear the Christmas carols being played on the loudspeaker. That was when I swore that I would never have KP again at Christmas time. Since then for the next 2 years I always took leave over the holiday and spent it off the base. There have been other bad Christmases but nothing remotely compared to that one.