Story #2251

July- 1990. Ft. Benning

We were 12 weeks into our 13 weeks and 3 days of OSUT and feeling pretty good about ourselves. Our platoon had managed to get everyone qualified on their weapons and had passed their PT test so our Drill Sergeants had laid off the bullshit and were giving us a little leeway and not coming around as often to smoke us or give us shit for the hell of it.

We had marched back to the Reception Station to get fitted for our Class “A” uniforms and to turn in any torn or unserviceable BDU’s and exchange them in preparation for graduation. As we were sitting in the hallway one of our guys, Private “White” decided to use the latrine. As he walked in another private, Private “Prince” (from another platoon) followed him in and we knew something was about to go down. A couple of weeks earlier Private Prince had mouthed off to our platoon and Private White said something back to him that questioned Prince’s manhood. Prince was from somewhere in ghetto-ville New Jersey and when standing before a judge a few months earlier for participating in a street robbery, had been told to join the Army or go to jail so he decided that the Army sounded better. He was over 6” tall and tipped the scales at 200+ and thought he was tough shit which led to numerous smoking sessions for his platoon due to his mouth and overall stupidity. He was the most hated guy in the company but nobody wanted to challenge him with his gangster ghetto-rat reputation.

So Private White walked into the latrine to take a piss and Price follows him in. White’s platoon knew that White was about to get his ass kicked so one enterprising soldier, Private Mike followed Prince into the latrine to keep an eye on things. As White was standing at the urinal Prince walked up behind him and shoved him. Private Mike said something like, “Dude. Let him piss first.” Prince turned around said something to Mike and Prince decided that Mike needed his ass kicked instead. Little did Prince know that Mike, all 5’7” and 150 lbs, was a state championship wrestler from somewhere out west and knew how to handle himself in a confined area. Within a minute Prince was a mess of his former self and there was blood on the walls, sinks, stall doors, and mirrors and floor. And in the middle of it laid Prince. Mike had a cut on the top of his head when Prince tried to bite him but other than that was unscathed.

White poked his head out of the door and asked for a couple of guys to help clean the mess up before one of our DS’s came walking by and within a few minutes the latrine was looking squared away other than Prince slouched in the corner with blood covering his t-shirt and trousers and knots covering his face and head from where Mike had connected over 50 times. White, Mike, and the rest of the platoon swore themselves to secrecy and nobody ever mentioned a word of it outside of our platoon.

A few days later we were sitting in our company area cleaning our weapons prior to final inspection when DS “S”, Private Prince’s DS, came up out of nowhere and looked at Private Mike and said “Was it you?” Private Mike, knowing that he was about to meet death, started to stand to address DS “S” when DS “S” said, “Stay seated,” and walked into the CQ office.

A few minutes later 4-5 Drill Sergeants came out of the office and looked over at Private Mike and they all started laughing. One of them, our platoon’s DS “C” came strutting over and stood over Private Mike and said, “Are you the private who kicked Prince’s ass?” Private Mike snapped to attention and without anything to lose, yelled so all could hear, “YES DRILL SERGEANT! I KICKED PRINCE’S ASS!” Drill Sergeant “C” leaned forward and with the brim of his brown round resting against Private Mike’s forehead, whispered “Outstanding. Carry on.”