Just thinking about fresh-faced recruit Phillip Graves.
Straight off the bus from Midland, overconfident smile, cowboy hat still in place.
He wasn’t ready for a group of people who didn’t care about his charm.
Yeah he survived basic, but he had to fall pretty hard before he gained some respect. That quarterback charm he always used on authority figures didn’t hold much weight there.
Dad was a cop and fully expected his son to follow in his footsteps. But it just isn’t in the cards for Graves to be small. He learned early how to respect authority, what it looked like, but most importantly, where it’s blind. Where he could take over.
Phillip wanted more, bigger, better, so he enlisted.
He was used to running things in high school back home. Sure, he was smart, but more importantly, he was charming. His mama taught him that. “You catch more flies with honey” kind of shit. He really expected that to carry him through just like it had his whole life.
But his CO’s didn’t reward his charm. They read it as arrogance, attitude, and insubordination. His fellow recruits took his dimpled smile to mean naivety.
The first time he tried to smooth talk a drill sergeant, he spent the rest of the evening cleaning toilets. He’s used to eye contact, confidence over correctness, and buttering up authority with a few “yes ma’am, yes sir”s. But the first time he heard “You think you’re smart, private?” he realized that’s all going to work zero percent here.
But Graves isn’t the type to let a few little hiccups get him down. He adapts, studying the people around him to see what buttons can be pushed and which require him to just shut up and work. Who he can maneuver around and who becomes pliable when he offers a little help.
He learns one thing everyone values about him more than his charm: his control.
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