POL Men 1956

POL men were a special breed. One thing was for sure they were tough, Working in a POL depot was hard work, it was also very dirty. You can became a true POL man when you could accomplish a certain task, We had rows and rows of 50 gallon drums weighing from 250 pound to around 300 depending what type fuel was in them. They were stacked 3 high, On the second and third level they were rolled up a ramp (wood).

Now to be that true POL man you took the sides of the drum with your hands and with your legs also pushing you got the drum up the ramp by yourself,(I did it) plus grab the drum with one hand on the rim and give it a twist so it could be rolled on the ground.

How tough were these men. This did happen. One night one of our men wanted to get in the orderly room on the first floor. The CQ (Charge of quarters) would not let him in and locked the door (The soldier drunk??) So he took his fist punched a hole in the door, Oh he got in.

Then fights in the EM club. POL men were well known.

But then there was the black soldier Sp3 Blankenship. He was a soldier of many talents, play the piano a clerk ,but one day he approached a couple of us and said he had learned to hypnotize he needed a couple of men to experiment on/So he told us where to meet him downstairs in an a room with just tables and chairs. He explained what he was going to do and that he would not hurt us (needle etc). He went to each of us and gave us a task to do, the next thing I knew it was like walking in your sleep. I left the room walked upstairs into a room with soldiers, I said something then returned to the room downstairs. He did what he said he could do.

Then the break room incident that was 1956,,,it was getting cold so we were allowed to make a fire in the pot belly stove outside the POL area in a shack on a large concrete platform With huge fire extinguisher on it that could be rolled. So as usual they try to get a fire started one soldier got impatient got some fuel and put it on the fire. I was outside a noise a lot of smoke soldiers pounding on the back of the break room windows broken and the big laugh of the day the fire extinguisher did not work, But it turned out more smoke than fire. No more fuel used to get the fire hot.

I guess the best memory they have of me is when I would be on my motorcycle and the POL truck would go by and I would see the soldiers in the back.

To sum up we were dirty hard workers but our sleeping quarters were kept immaculately clean.