Private Griffin

 The wife and I were talking yesterday, and I don't know how the subject came up, but we started talking about my time in Basic Training.  I hit Ft. McClellan in October of 1995.  There's always going to be some conflict when you get people from all over the country together and put them into a stressful environment.  But there are some assholes who just make it worse.

That was PVT Griffin.

Griffin was a loud-mouthed skinny black kid from some southern state.  I never cared enough about him to find out which one.  Griffin made sure that everybody knew his dad was a Master Sergeant in the Army.  That was non-stop babble from him for at least a week.  He loved to talk about himself.  He loved to trash talk.  Now here I was, a skinny white kid with BCGs that could be used as a hand-to-hand weapon, and naturally Griffin wanted to talk trash.

I don't do that.  It's just not in my nature.  So I shrugged him off, which got under his skin.  He wanted a reaction.  He wanted me to get mad, and I didn't.  I had other shit to deal with, right?   Basic Training, man!  If he wasn't in my platoon I wouldn't have even known who the hell he was because he just wasn't all that smart or all that good. 

But after a while, I started to find ways to make him pay for his loud mouth.  

The first time was wind sprints.  I was a sprinter in high school.  100 meter hurdles, and every now and then I would do the 100m dash if they needed some bodies.  Griffin is talking shit as usual, and I make sure that I'm in the same group as he is.  And I make sure I'm side by side with him.  I traded places with other recruits just to make sure that every time he runs, I'm running right next to him.  We get up to the line, and I get down in a four point stance, which of course made the usual idiots hoot and laugh.  Drill Sergeant said "Go!"

I smoked his ass.  It wasn't even close.  He had no shot to even keep up.  And I made DAMN SURE he knew it all the way back to the start.  I was five inches from his ear tossing back every bit of crap he'd ever said to me, and I was doing it at full volume while making sure he understood that I was better than him.  Got back in line.  His line was a bit longer, so I traded places with the guy behind me to ensure that I raced against Griffin again.  Which got some whining and complaining from the usual suspects, but fuck 'em.  Got up to the line, got into my stance, and I smoked his ass again.  And once again I was in his ear the entire way back to the start.  I did this two or three more times before I finally relented, and I asked if there was anyone who might actually give me a challenge.

Honestly, that was the first time my platoon had seen me go off like that.  They didn't know what the hell to do.  The Drill Sergeants just let it happen.  Maybe they were as tired of Griffin's shit as I was.

The second time, Griffin was bragging about his wrestling skills.  Seems he wrestled in high school.  Cool.  So did I.  I finally got tired of listening to him talk about himself and I walked over and said "I'll bet you can't pin me."  His eyes lit up, because of course he was the hero of every story in his own mind.  We set a time limit of two minutes, squared up, and I let him come at me.  I just turtled up.  I didn't try to do anything, I just laid there and made sure he couldn't get a grip on me.  At one point I looked up at his buddy who was clearly clueless and wondering why his pal couldn't flip me over, and I just rolled my eyes.  Once the two minutes were up, I got up and laughed in Griffin's face.  He was full of excuses about why he couldn't pin me, making excuses is what Griffin did best.  And every time Griffin started to brag about his physical prowess, I just asked him if he could pin me in two minutes.

And the last time...  remember Griffin bragging about his dad being a Master Sergeant?  That irritated me, because he was trying to use his dad's rank in order to impress people.  And some of the suckers fell for it.  

My father is a Lieutenant Colonel, and I didn't tell anybody.  Not a soul.  Because that's HIS rank, not mine.  I was a Private, and I wasn't about to use my dad's rank for a damn thing.

So we're getting ready for graduation.  The Drill Sergeants ask if there will be any VIPs coming.  He then defined VIP as O-5 or above, or Sergeant Major.  Well hell, Lieutenant Colonel is O-5.  So I raise my hand.  And every head in my platoon turns to look at me.  Again, I hadn't said shit about my dad.  Nobody knew who he was.  Drill Sergeant asks who the VIP is.  I tell him my father.  What rank, the DS asks.  "DRILL SERGEANT, LIEUTENANT COLONEL, DRILL SERGEANT!"

Griffin just about shit himself out of jealousy.  And he didn't speak one word to me from that time on.

Anyways, just random shit that pulls itself out of my memory banks from time to time.  I never saw anybody from my Basic Training class ever again, and I was fine with that.  I had bigger and better things to worry about.