OH LAWD chapter 35

Chef courtesy Free Clip Art

 

After coming up with a new menu for the officers, it was up to me to teach these want-a-bee chefs how to prepare the new dishes.

Some of the dishes required an order to be placed the day before which at first didn't set too well with the officers. 

Finally they realized that many of these dishes weren’t like making some “thrown together hash,” but required some time for preparation.

Some of the officers, upon being transferred would try to steal the trained cooks and take them to where their new duty was; but I would make a big effort to keep them where they were, and besides they didn't want to leave.

I told the Colonel that I should have an officer's rank since I was in charge of the food for the elitists of the service.

I said, “It doesn't do justice to call me ‘Private’ in charge of the officer's mess.  Just consider it a battlefield promotion and it will be a permanent promotion only while I serve here.”

After a few days I received my Second Lieutenant bars.

One reason for asking for this had to do with housing. I was living in a barracks, and now I would qualify for a place of my own, if and when it came available.

It would allow me to live off base should I find such a place.

The Colonel and his wife were living in a small three bedroom flat and she wasn't very happy being somewhat cramped.  He received a promotion, and they were moving into larger quarters, and she helped me take over the place where they had been living.

She left me quite a bit of furniture and I said to myself, “Home at last.”

As I was relaxing in my new digs I began thinking, “Why am I being favored like this?  A few days later I got my answer.

The Colonel's wife called and told me she was expecting to entertain a number of military guests.  She would expect me to see to it that everyone was well fed and taken care of.

“Aha,” I thought, “I get it now, all of this business of promotion and every thing that has happened had to do with her, and not my performance.

I decided, “So be it, everyone was using everyone for that was the way it was at this level of living.”

On the night of the big doings I had prepared everything in my kitchen and transported it to the house before the guests arrived in time to serve it.

It got so I was expected to do this somewhere a couple of times a week.

There were many jobs available in the Pentagon, and they paid fairly well, so I called up Marly (By now we were almost on speaking terms) and told her that she could probably get a job here if she was interested.

She said she would like that, and she would ask Linda if she wanted to work there also.  

 

I hesitated on that for a while because I was going to offer Marly one of my bedrooms, finally I said, “Go ahead and ask her.”

Two days later there were two ladies on my doorstep ready for employment.

Upon my recommendation they were hired on as temporary help while they were checked out. 

 

After six weeks they were taken on as permanent help with badges and all.

We each had our own bedroom, and I was always up and gone in the mornings by five so there wasn't much conflict due to scheduling.  I hardly saw them at all.

It wasn't long before men at work were asking them out, and I never had a weekend off even though I was supposed to.

 
Every where I went I was saluting someone or someone was saluting me, except in the kitchen where we were all Chefs, and were too busy for formalities.

I met many of the top men in the service and was privileged to feed them some fine food which they said they appreciated.

So it was for the next three plus years until the war suddenly came to an end.

For the next year after the war, the place was hopping. There was so much to be done unwinding this war machine that had won this mighty victory.

At my repeated request I finally was released from service.

 

I had been expecting to be demoted back to private first class, but they allowed me to remain an officer and I was mustered out as such.

Oh Lawd!

To be Continued