The Curse of those Two Green Doo Wah Diddy Ribbons IV

Boy! Was it ever true: hubris can indeed be contagious!

After all, withour puny intellects harnessed to those of our Platoon Ten Twenty-five Bright Boys , hey! Why not? We might all go on to nail down the Camp Pendleton Edson Range Rifle Range record. And at the same time we did that, we could also walk away with one of the most coveted pennants at MCRD San Diego for our platoon guidon. The C.M.C. Marksmanship Pennant, I believe it was called, a beautiful maroon and gold ribbon, if I remember correctly.

And none too soon. Because, you see, that bad 'ole Green Eyed Monster of jealousy was beginning to infect not only the other three platoons but also their respective DIs. And I don't mean maybe. In fact our own platoon's quota of Bright Boys told us so, which made it all true.

You can just bet on it!

As our very own Bright Boys told us, there was beginning the most awful mumble-mumble throughout the Wisk-scented concrete laundry wash racks, the tin-roofed quonset hut barracks, and the latrines, everywhere in fact, that represented "home" for all three hundred of us.

More, the substance of that mumble-mumble, unodubtedly provoked by the Green Eyed Monster, himself, was little sort of spiteful.

Mincing no words, our ever-truthful Bright Boys gave us the story whose substance generally ran along these lines, to whit, that: "Outside them two green doo-wah-diddy streamers, all you all Bright (as well as allegedly) Mother-fixated Boys in Ten Twenty-five ain't likely to make out worth a fly'in you-know-what for the rest of basic training."

And that was that.

Upon hearing these reports, and being understandably incensed at being on the receiving end of such malicious banter, all of us in Platoon Ten Twenty-five closed ranks against our common enemy.

And our answer was plain, manly and very much and to the point.

"Well, then, f... all you all jealous (as well as allegedly) mother-fixated sons of promiscuous -- as well as presumbably female -- canines. 'Cause our Bright Boys are fixing to run circles around yours, and where it's really going to hurt. Just you wait and see."

Most likely all this juvenilia would have stopped right there, but of all people, our Senior D.I., Staff Sergeant José Padilla, got wind of it. Originally from the old San Juan District of El Paso, Texas, he would have been deaf, dumb and slow if he hadn't known what was going on. And SSgt. José Padilla was none of those things. A veteran of the Korean War, he was an excellent walking, talking example of the adage that "the NCO is the backbone of the Corps."

End Part IV