Winter of 1958, I had just finished basic training and was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, NJ for 30 weeks of radio school.

Our class was an experiential class taking our training at night. The Christmas – New Years holidays were approaching and everyone wanted to be home for the holidays.

A week or ten days before Christmas our 1st Sergeant announced that because so many men would be on leave that our Mess Hall and two others would rotate feeding all three companies. He asked for volunteers to pull KP for the three days our Mess Hall would be open and explained that if he did not get the volunteers he would have to assign the duty and some of the guys would not get leave.

By chance our Mess Hall would be the first to be open. After formation I went to his office and asked what my status would be when our Mess Hall was closed. His reply was that I would be “off duty”. There were enough other volunteers that I would have to pull KP for only two days, since very few men would be eating it would really be light work.

After I finished my two days I went back to the barracks, cleaned up and put on my class A’s. Then I went to the Co. Headquarters and signed out on pass.

I had a delightful Christmas and holiday at home in Va. Beach. When I returned to base on Jan. 2 everyone in the barracks was telling me that I better get to the 1st Sergeant’s ASAP!

When I walked in he really jumped me! Where had I been? I did not have leave! When he finally ran out of air I asked if he remembered my asking what my status would be when our Mess Hall was closed. He did. I then reminded him that his answer was “OFF DUTY”.

Then I asked him when a class A pass was good for. He almost shouted “OFF DUTY HOURS!!” and then just stopped, shook his head slightly and I said that if he would check the roster he would see that I had signed out for Va. Beach.

With that, he hung his head and muttered “get out of here”. I later learned that all the fellows that had stayed on base had worked in the commissary, shoveled snow, and did other grunt work when they were supposedly “off duty”.