After my dad’s basic training he was sent to Japan at the end of World War II.   While there he was assigned to work in the motor pool.    Dad had been raised on a farm and while they did have some motor vehicles he was more used to working with horses and livestock.   He had a great aversion to working on automobile engines.  It would have been a delight for his younger brother back home to have been assigned to but my dad just never liked working on cars and trucks.    But he did a little here and there, changed tires,  cleaned the rigs out and washed them down.   Then one day his sergeant decided to have my dad grease the trucks.   Dad hated getting under the hood of these vehicles and all the dirty greasy work involved in maintaining an engine.   

But my dad was quite creative at times and a bright idea came to him in which he figured he would never have to work with dirty black engine grease again.   Dad set about to do exactly what his sergeant told him to do.  To grease the trucks.  He took the black goo and greased the door handles, the steering wheel,  the gear shift knobs, the head lamps and the windsheild wipers.   Plus he did open the engine hood and greased things underneath there as well.    He greased all those trucks right up and nicely.   Done he reported to his sergeant who came to inspect the work.    My dad said the sergeant colored the air blue with his language as he upbraided my dad for his stupidity.  While he was dressing my dad down for his dumb actions and the mess he made an officer who had been nearby heard the ruckus and came to investigate.    He stood listening to the tirade  for a bit then saw my dad smirk and the twinkle in his eye.   

He figured out my dad had done it on purpose and why.   He then told the sergeant to go about his business and he would take over from there.  My dad was sure he was going to spend a few days in the pokey and was ready to go there at least he would not have to be greasing trucks or working on engines.   Instead the Captain made my dad staff sergeant of the motor pool a head above the sergeant and assigned him and office and secretary for his brilliance of getting out of a job he loathed.   The captian said it was men like my dad they needed in the army because they thought things through and found ways around a problem they encountered.  He figured the army did not need to waste such a brilliant mind working at the menial job of working on vehicle engines.      It was a big joke on base while my dad was there.       My dad spent another year there then was sent home on an early discharge because my grandpa was ill and my uncle had just been drafted.   He was needed at home.    But he had a great time he said being a staff sergeant and riding the sergeant who had dressed him down for his stupidity.