A few guys on another forum asked about my call sign.
One from Sogo's ( that recalled seeing me ), said I didn't look very dragon like. especially with the skull mask and skull painted on my helmet. Said I should be Bones or something.
It's a long story... ( i'm warning ya now .. it's a lengthy read!)
The call sign is a variation of my radio handle from before I was in the army.
Way back in the day, ... I worked on a river dredge and some river tug boats as a deck-hand.
My uncle was a Captain of one of those boats, and for a while everyone refused to give me a radio handle... mostly to embarrass me when I had to use the radio, just because I was new. ( rookies always get the shaft.)
Keep in mind now, that back then... I wasn't near as heavy as I am now. ( Not that I'm all that heavy , I might push 154 super soaking wet.) Then it was hard for me to gain weight, and I was around 105 pounds , looking very thin and skinny.
One day, we got a big break... had to move some equipment up river with a few of the tugs, so the dredge operation shut down, and was waiting it's turn. The crew and I , along with the Big Boss of the company hopped on a shuttle boat, and went to shore to kick back some Budweiser about lunch time.
Well, during my second round, I had kinda noticed a gator lurking near the shore where we were kicking back, waiting for the tugs to come back.
The Big Boss was lurking around the area, talking on his phone to someone important.
The Gator shot up out of the water and latched onto Big Boss with his life vest in the things mouth. The lizard was like 4 feet long, easilly 200 pounds or more. Big Boss was a Big BIG man, but he was on a muddy slope, and the gator thrashing around.. was making him slip.
It was like slow motion to me... Everyone around me was just looking in shock at the scene. It was like no one knew what to do.
I didn't either, but I knew I couldn't let that gator pull Big Boss into the river. It was big enough to drown and break bones on even a big guy.
I kinda instinctively jumped up and charged the gator as Big Boss pulled back... I shoulder tackled the thing in it's side.
To me... I was terrified, hitting the lizard was running face first into a big tree. But I hit it hard enough , I guess just in the right spot to knock the breath from the thing, and it let Big Boss go.
The momentum... carried me and the gator into the water... there was a concrete anchor point half submerged right there by the shore. Both me and the lizard hit the thing... I about knocked myself out... and while I was stunned I remember thinking I was in the water with an alligator. I was going to die.
The gator though... swam off. Big Boss and Jamey the engineer pulled me out of the water.
Big Boss inspected the damage to his vest, cussed about loosing his phone in the water... then looked at me, as I laid there white as bone, panting for breath.
He tossed his head back, and bellowed out a laugh, like I had never heard anyone laugh before.
I got checked out by the medic, got a couple days off... and when I came back to work, as soon as I got on the dredge ... Big Boss was there, he stepped out of the cabin, with a sticker to put on my hard hat. I couldn't see it.
He looked down at me, and said... From here on out, your name is Gator.
( I wound up getting a 5 dollar and hour raise too I discovered.)
No one called me by my name out there anymore. Even my own uncle who I was close too... called me gator. It was my nick name, my radio handle ... who I was to those guys.
Those guys told and re-told the "Time that Gator beat the sh*t out of a Gator", over and over ... every time getting more preposterous than the last time it was told.
It was funny to them... because I was so small and skinny. All these guys were big, corn-fed hillbilly looking dudes... and I was the one who kept that gator from possibly hurting Big Boss.
Well, after that contract ended... the nick-name stuck with me. Associates and all that called me Gator long after I left the river boat system.
When I get into the Army... I made the mistake of telling some guys the real events of what happened. ( you have a lot of time to kill, while polishing boots.) Well, guess what, I was Squad leader Gator from then on out.
Even my dang Drill Sergeants started calling me Gator after a while.
... Now fast forward many years later...
I get into Airsoft.
I see everyone has a call sign.
I try to log into several forums, using Gator as my call sign.
It was taken , every place I went.
So I thought about it... and well... a Dragon is very similar to a Gator, probably even sounds a bit more respectable. So, I tired logging into places using Dragon... and it was an open forum name, and seemed a call sign I could use.
One of the guys down in Siloam ( they were a religious group on top of everything.) , said the way I aggressively played airsoft ... that I was the serpent in the grass of their group. More or less , he was calling me the Devil... lol.
I asked him later on What he really meant by that... ( I wasn't part of their religious group, so I thought he was insulting me in some way.)
He laughed at me, and told me that Dragon was fitting name for me. Described my play style. He referred to the "Snake in the grass " comment again. He explained he wasn't saying that I was Satan... but because I would low crawl in and out of places, and then pop out unexpectedly , aggressively attacking OPFOR... No one hardly ever seen me coming.
He then kinda stated... another name for The Serpent in the Grass, was Dragon. ( some sort of hebrew/latin translation thingy he sprouted off... )
Yeah, he was still calling me a Devil in a round about way... , but Dragon fit me I guess. So I had picked a call sign that was a variation of yet another aggressive lizard, and found out to others it fit me from their point of view.
So Dragon I am.
Yeah, I do the skull thing on my helmet... In Sogo's it's just a bit intimidating to see me in the helmet and mask.( I hope. Probably just dorky looking though.) They didn't make Dragon mask. or I woulda got one.
The helmet... I couldn't find a stencil to paint a dragon on it, that would look decent... so I used the Skull, just because it was easy to do.
Now that this novel is finished... I hope now everyone gets why I am Dragon.
