Photo: USARMYGERMANY.com. The
original caption says "Bob Alsop, 1964". I don't remember him either though
I was there that year. You can see the 3rd ACR pin more clearly on his
block hot. It's a nice clean hat. A well-worn block hat had a dark ring of
grease around the the bottom edge, that also leaked into the bill, and that
got bigger and darker as time passed until it engulfed the whole hat.
Whenever you saw somebody with a hat like that you were supposed to say,
"Hey, when you gonna change the oil in that hat?" (motor pool humor)*. We
had a Mess Sergeant with an especially oily hat, and every time he'd lean
over a giant pot to stir it, the hat would fall in, I guess that's why the
food tasted so good! I don't remember his name but he was awesome. One
time after we had been in the field (i.e. in the mud) for an entire month
when it never stopped raining for even one minute, we finally got back to
base at about 3:00am and he had an enormous pile of big fat fresh-baked
chocolate-chip cookies waiting for us, hot from the oven. Anyway, this is a
standard locker with photos, dop kit, German beer mug (probably
BBK), etc.
When you consider what the Army is like now, and where you are likely to end
up, that was pretty nice duty. We never knew we had it so good.
_____________________
*
| At some point in 1964 we switched to soft hats. The advantage of
which was that they could be washed. No more grease jokes.
|