I want a Quonset hut. Not in the way someone wants a new car or a new TV. You can do without those unnecessary items. I want a Quonset hut like a dog wants a treat hours after you’ve fed him. I am tail-wagging, spin around, and lift my front paws off the ground wanting this. Never mind I have neither the money nor land for such a purchase.  Reality schmeality when it comes to this dream. I REALLY want this (tongue panting excitedly).

My earliest recollection of the Q hut is seeing them while growing up on Army bases throughout the South. Fort Rucker, Fort Sill, and Fort Polk were bastions of classic Army architecture (an oxymoron if there ever was one). They weren’t as well-represented as the salad days of post World War II but they were still an intricate part of everyday Army life. Relegated to supply or training purposes the Army had moved on from using the Q hut as barracks.

If you didn’t grow up in a military family but are from my generation there was another avenue the Q hut entered your life. Gomer Pyle USMC was a popular TV show from 1964-1969. Although never a fan of the show, I found Pyle annoying and Sgt

Carter a bully, I was fascinated with the Quonset hut. Oh the irony when I found myself on those Yellow Footprints years later and learned Sgt Carter was a pussycat. The show was filmed on a set full of Quonset huts. I remember fighting my way through the tediousness of the show just to see inside the Q huts. The Marines of the show worked, slept, and trained inside the silver monoliths. I wanted to live in a Q hut!

By the time I joined the Marines the Quonset hut had become a bit player in military life. In boot camp we had a few classes in a Q hut. When I arrived at El Toro the few on base were used for storage or served as supply depots. The ones still standing looked like old stubborn trees battered and beaten, not knowing they were supposed to succumb. Rusted, pocked, and weathered they were the old Gunny Sergeant past his days but not willing to retire. If I remember right my gas chamber practice was in a Q hut at Camp Pendleton. Fun times in the ol’ gas chamber. Not the Q hut experience I envisioned as a lad.

Post-military life I saw very few in California or Texas. There was the random Q hut in agricultural areas used to house equipment or farm supplies. Now travelling through Montana and Idaho they are everywhere. Most still used for storing equipment or vehicles but some like the featured picture house a business.

Why the attraction? Why not? They are modern yet nostalgic. Totalitarian yet democratic. Versatile and simple. And quintessentially masculine. What guy doesn’t want an enormous garage-style entryway to his house? Plus there’s a regular door for the little woman!

The Q hut is making a small comeback. Great for rural life but I doubt your neighbor will be taking out his Home Depot tool shed for this corrugated, galvanized steel semi-circle shaped wonder They take up a lot of space. But their unique design and ease of construction make them a fun option for the kit house market and today’s upgraded Q huts are a eco-loving hipster’s wet dream. It’s the ultimate version of recycling.

I want a Quonset hut. Gawwwwwly, I’ll take an old silver one thank you very much.