Private Survival

I was at the motor pool, doing some maintenance on my vehicle. Being a driver, I was required to do some fairly heavy repair on my own vehicles.

I can't remember which one I was working on, but it involved changing a tire. I don't mean just like when you put on a spare, but when you take the tire off the rim and put a new one on it. It was a bit of a strenuous job and I may or may not have been having some difficulties in removing and replacing the old tire.

Before long, I noticed the captain and his XO (Executive Officer) standing, looking over my shoulder, watching me sweat. I didn't pay much attention to them, but mostly went on about my business.

After a few minutes, the captain, (can't recall his name,) began talking, bragging, about how he had been a motor-pool officer earlier in his career. Moreover, he began offering advice on the project set before me. I'm not sure how much attention I was actually paying him, when I found him kneeling on the floor beside me with his hands busy tugging, pulling and pushing on my tire. I moved out of his way. It wasn't very long after that, when the XO, (Lieutenant Dorch, whom we called “LTD,)” had, apparently observing his senior on the floor working, decided he had best join in the fray. Now both of them were on the floor wrestling with my tire. I stood up and stepped back.

It couldn't have been more than two or three minutes with the captain and lieutenant playing mechanic. It was about then when the captain, who had been busy explaining the entire time, looked around to see little old me, Private Davis, standing there, arms crossed, with a big smile on my face, merely as an observer of the entire spectacle.

I suppose it finally dawned on him and he quickly stood up, LTD standing along with him, and, looking at me, said, “Finish this private!” I smiled again saying, “Yes, sir” and returned to the work at hand.

I learned a very valuable lesson about people that day. They like to feel their value and will do a lot of crazy stuff to prove it. Even an Army officer can easily be pulled into a booby-trap by playing to his ego.

Yes, I know it's passive-aggressive. Sometimes, though, it took little stunts like that to survive as a private, (later PFC,) in Uncle Sam's Army. In the end, it's all about survival.

On a further note, I decided long ago that I have little or nothing to prove. Many a time some insecure someone will come along who wants to do the work and run the show. Most every time, if I feel that it will not harm me or mine, I stand back and let them do it, smiling all the while. It's a joke they just can't seem to get.