KP duty

Last updated December 07, 2023

KP duty means "kitchen police" or "kitchen patrol" work under the kitchen staff assigned to junior U.S. enlisted military personnel. "KP" can be either the work or the personnel assigned to perform such work. In the latter sense it can be used for either military or civilian personnel assigned or hired for duties in the military dining facility excluding cooking.

Etymology

The U.S. military sometimes uses the word "police" as a verb to mean "to clean" or "to restore to order". For example, after a company picnic on a U.S. Marine Corps base, a group of Marines might be assigned to police, or clean up, the picnic grounds. Its origins in this usage probably came from the French sense of maintaining public order. Kitchen police then may mean to restore the kitchen to order, or clean up the kitchen. The term "KP" has been used in the United States since as early as 1918.^[2]

History

In the U.S. military, it is often more formally known as mess duty, and is restricted to enlisted personnel. A service member is sometimes "put on KP" for some minor infraction committed while on duty, in uniform, or on a military installation, something that would not require an Article 15 or non-judicial punishment hearing. In the British Forces the equivalent punishment is known as Jankers. However, KP is usually assigned out of necessity, not for punishment. In this latter case, all junior enlisted personnel assigned to a mess would be put on a roster and regularly receive assignments to KP duty on a rotating basis.^[3]

KP duties, however, can include any tedious chores in the military mess at an installation or in the field, such as food preparation, although not cooking, or the more obvious dish washing and pot scrubbing, sweeping and mopping floors, wiping tables, serving food on the chow line, or anything else the kitchen staff sees fit to assign to its KP crew. KP duty can be particularly onerous because it is on top of all regular duties, as institutional kitchens often open before and close after regular duty hours, and generate large volumes of unpleasant food wastes. Mess halls for the modern U.S. military are often contracted out to civilian firms, making KP duty less common today than it once was.

United States Navy

In the U.S. Navy all sailors are assigned to 90 days of Temporary Assigned Duty (TAD) upon reporting to their respective commands. For most sailors this will mean being sent to a shore-based or shipboard galley, which includes, but is not limited to, washing dishes in the scullery, food prep, mess deck cleaning, and/or line server. The only exception is if the individual is in a "critical rating" and cannot be spared. Personnel assigned these duties are known as Food Service Attendants or FSAs (formerly called mess cooks). Upon completion of 90 days' TAD, a Page 13 entry is made into the individual's service record to prevent reassignment to the galley or mess deck.

Related Research Articles

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator, and worktops and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a microwave oven, a dishwasher, and other electric appliances. The main functions of a kitchen are to store, prepare and cook food. The room or area may also be used for dining, entertaining and laundry. The design and construction of kitchens is a huge market all over the world.

Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a house or estate, and the managing of other domestic concerns. A person in charge of the homemaking, who is not employed outside the home, in the US and Canada, is called a homemaker, a term for a housewife or a househusband. Historically the role of homemaker was often assumed by women. The term "homemaker", however, may also refer to a social worker who manages a household during the incapacity of the housewife or househusband. Home health workers assume the role of homemakers when caring for elderly individuals. This includes preparing meals, giving baths, and any duties the person in need cannot perform for themselves.

A dishwasher is a machine that is used to clean dishware, cookware, and cutlery automatically. Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, typically between 45 and 75 °C, at the dishes, with lower temperatures of water used for delicate items.

A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who does not hold a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. In contrast, commissioned officers usually enter directly from a military academy, officer training corps (OTC) or reserve officer training corps (ROTC), or officer candidate school (OCS) or officer training school (OTS), after receiving a post-secondary degree.

Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. In wartime operations, the military police may support the main fighting force with force protection, convoy security, screening, rear reconnaissance, logistic traffic management, counterinsurgency, and detainee handling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mess</span> Place where military personnel eat and socialize

The mess is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the officers' mess, the chief petty officer mess, and the enlisted mess. In some civilian societies this military usage has been extended to the eating arrangements of other disciplined services such as fire fighting and police forces.

A mess kit is a collection of silverware and cookware designed for use by military personnel for food and military rations. They may also be used during camping and backpacking. There are many varieties of mess kits that militaries issue to their personnel that later become available to consumers.

A scullery is a room in a house, traditionally used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen. Tasks performed in the scullery include cleaning dishes and cooking utensils, occasional kitchen work, ironing, boiling water for cooking or bathing, and soaking and washing clothes. Sculleries contain hot and cold sinks, sometimes slop sinks, drain pipes, storage shelves, plate racks, a work table, various coppers for boiling water, tubs, and buckets.

An exchange is a type of retail store found on United States military installations worldwide. Originally akin to trading posts, they now resemble contemporary department stores or strip malls. Exact terminology varies by armed service; some examples include base exchange (BX), and post exchange (PX), and there are more specific terms for subtypes of exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cast-iron cookware</span> Cookware valued for heat retention properties

Heavy-duty cookware made of cast iron is valued for its heat retention, durability, ability to maintain high temperatures for longer time duration, and non-stick cooking when properly seasoned. Seasoning is also used to protect bare cast iron from rust. Types of cast iron cookware include frying pans, dutch ovens, griddles, waffle irons, flattop grills, panini presses, crepe makers, deep fryers, tetsubin, woks, potjies, and karahi.

United States military pay is money paid to members of the United States Armed Forces. The amount of pay varies according to the member's rank, time in the military, location duty assignment, and by some special skills the member may have.

Culinary specialist is a United States Navy occupational rating. The rating was created on January 15, 2004 from the mess management specialist (MS) rating.

Foods of the American Civil War were the provisions during the American Civil War with which both the Union and Confederate armies struggled to keep their soldiers provisioned adequately.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steward's assistant</span> Merchant ship crewman

A steward's assistant (SA) is an unlicensed, entry-level crewmember in the Steward's department of a merchant ship. This position can also be referred to as steward, galley utilityman, messman, supply, waiter or General Steward (GS).

A military building is any structure designed to house functions performed by a military unit. General types include:

The United States Navy occupational rating of boatswain's mate is a designation given by the Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) to enlisted members who were rated or "striking" for the rating as a deck seaman. The colloquial form of address for a boatswain's mate is "Boats".

An officer is a person who holds a position of authority as a member of an armed force or uniformed service.

The Master-at-Arms (MA) rating is responsible for law enforcement and force protection in the United States Navy—equivalent to the United States Army Military Police, the United States Marine Corps Military Police, the United States Air Force Security Forces, and the United States Coast Guard's Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist. It is one of the oldest ratings in the United States Navy, having been recognized since the inception of the U.S. Navy.

References

↑ Department of the Army Headquarters (1998). "AR 310-25, Dictionary of the United States Army Terms". U.S. Government Printing Office. Archived from the original on 2006-09-26. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
↑ Hutton, Captain T. R. (1919). H-a-l-tt!--Wha-zaa? Being a History of the First Provisional Regiment and the Answer of a State Militant to the Threat of Berlin. New York: The Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee. p. 243. LCCN 19017907. OCLC 510981. OL 6620257M . Retrieved November 17, 2014.
↑ Treadwell, Mattie E. (1991) [1953]. "The Women's Army Corps". United States Army in World War II Special Studies. United States Army Center of Military History . Retrieved 2006-11-20.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Department of the Army Headquarters (1998). "AR 310-25, Dictionary of the United States Army Terms". U.S. Government Printing Office. Archived from the original on 2006-09-26. Retrieved 2006-11-20.

[1919history-2] Hutton, Captain T. R. (1919). H-a-l-tt!--Wha-zaa? Being a History of the First Provisional Regiment and the Answer of a State Militant to the Threat of Berlin. New York: The Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee. p. 243. LCCN 19017907. OCLC 510981. OL 6620257M . Retrieved November 17, 2014.

[3] Treadwell, Mattie E. (1991) [1953]. "The Women's Army Corps". United States Army in World War II Special Studies. United States Army Center of Military History . Retrieved 2006-11-20.

[1]

[2]

[3]