Gomez

I was ordered to pull KP, (kitchen police) duty one Saturday in place of Sargent Gomez because he had to drive for a high ranking officer. I adamantly protested to the Duty Officer but the best that I could do was get a guarantee that the next time my name came up on the KP roster, Gomez was going to pay me back and pull my KP duty. KP was the absolute worst duty that could befall me. I always drew the nasty job of pot and pan man. The PP man had to scrub and clean up, all day long, the huge pots and pans from every meal. Those cooks, I swear would empty them and put them back on the gas stove, then just let the crap burn into the bottoms. After washing, they had to pass inspection, most were rejected for a do over.

We had cut a hole in the fence behind the motorpool to avoid the gate guards “walk the white line fyasko” have access to the beer joint across the autobahn. The German autobahn, having been designed by none other than Adolf Hitler, had no speed limit. Drivers were allowed to drive as fast as their vehicle would go. It is an odd feeling to pass a police car doing over 100 mph.

On the other side of that hole in the fence there was a ditch. In that ditch is where we were all sitting after I got off of KP duty late that Saturday night, Gomez, myself and three more GIs. We took turns crossing the autobahn to replenish our supply of suds.

Gomez stood up, burped loudly, and said my time to buy.
One millisecond, just one step after he climbed out of that ditch and there was a terrible crash. I jumped up and ran down the roadway to the spot where Gomez was laying, face down. I was of a mind to tell him that he was, not, going to get out of pulling my KP that easy. I rolled him over to tell him that I thought he did that on purpose. To my astonishment, close up, in the dim light of a flick of my Zippo, I could see that ,
GOMEZ HAD NO FACE!

James M. Cripps

US Army 1967-1970

519th Transportation, Heidelberg Germany