Written by James Taylor
During his time at Harding, Gary Griffin has been given the nickname “Tabs” because he keeps tabs on everyone and just about everything going on around him. Griffin no doubt acquired his attention to detail during his five years spent serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Griffin grew up in Waynesboro, Va., and first came to Harding in 1999. He spent two years here before he felt called to serve in the Coast Guard.
“I’ve always loved the water, and I love search and rescue and being able to travel,” Griffin said. “But I didn’t want to fight overseas, so the Coast Guard seemed like the best fit,” Griffin said. He said he also knew about the Coast Guard’s tuition assistance programs.
Enlisting for more than four years would give Griffin the money he needed to get the degree he wanted.
Griffin’s love for the water is evident from his resume. He has been a lifeguard, pool-manager and safety-instructor. His love of country may have come from his family. His father was an officer in the U.S. Army and his grandfather was a pilot in World War II.
Upon returning to Harding, Griffin decided to major in public relations and is planning to graduate in May 2012. Griffin said returning to Harding was an easy choice.
“It’s filled with good Christians, and a bunch of my credits from here wouldn’t transfer,” Griffin said. “I’m 28, I don’t have any time to waste!”
When asked if he had any interesting stories from his time spent in the service, Griffin had many. One involved catching a foreign boat trafficking cocaine through Mexican waters. Griffin told many stories; however, the following two stuck out.
Responding to the storm
For Griffin’s first assignment in the Coast Guard, he was stationed in the town of Demopolis, Ala., a small town with fewer than 8,000 residents. There he crewed a 135-foot boat that was responsible for taking care of all five of Alabama’s rivers. His crew’s job was supposed to be simple: setting up buoys and taking care of the navigational aids.
Within his crew, Griffin said his job was “taking care of the grounds and making sure the boat had everything it needed.”
But in the fall of 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, and the damage from the category three storm extended all the way to Alabama. During the night, 70 mph winds whipped the town of Demopolis, and Griffin said he found himself “asked to do a lot more than [he] was trained to do.”
Demopolis had sustained “considerable damage” from the storm. A falling tree had caved in the roof of his next-door neighbor’s house. His superior officer called him in to the station that same night, told him to pack what he could and head to the Coast Guard station in Mobile.
Griffin and his immediate officer packed up and drove south to help with disaster relief.
“The further south we went, the worse the conditions were,” Griffin said. “Trees were down, power lines were down and debris from houses was scattered all over the roads.”
After a three-hour trip, Griffin and his officer arrived at their hotel. It was 5 a.m., and the building lacked power and running water. They unpacked their bags using flashlights and then headed for the local Coast Guard station.
When they arrived, they found the Mobile station trashed. Boats were overturned, trees had fallen on top of buildings, parts of houses were strewn across the parking lots and several cars had punched holes through building walls.
Griffin made his way through the debris and received his orders for the day: grab a forklift and start making piles of the wreckage.
But Griffin was not alone. Coast Guard members from all over the area poured into Mobile to lend a hand. Boats from other Coast Guard stations dropped off drinking water and other supplies for Griffin and the community.
For five straight days they worked “from 5 a.m. ‘till sunset,” clearing adebris and trash with forklifts. At the same time Griffin said he helped unload storm victims that the Coast Guard had rescued.
“We helped drag people of all ages, dead or alive, out of the boats and on to dry land,” he said.
The workdays were only broken up by nights in a dark hotel, which still had no air conditioning or water. Griffin said sleep rarely came, and showers were out of the question.
After the initial cleanup, the rest of Griffin’s unit arrived on his boat with some new equipment.
His new orders were to pull all the gear off the boat and use it to repair the lights in a nearby channel. After unloading the boat, which Griffin said took about four hours, the commanding officer of the Mobile station explained the situation: there were more than 200 lights in the channel that needed to be repaired or replaced, and the job needed to be done in two days.
Griffin and his fellow sailors were given a five-minute tutorial on how to assemble and replace the lights and then got immediately to work.
Griffin stayed at the station to assemble the lights and load them on to outgoing boats. By the end of the first day he said he had put together 90 lights for the channel. His work was rewarded that night when power returned to his hcvotel.
“We were happy to see that the power was back on, and we finally got to take a shower and have some decent rest,” Griffin said.
The next morning, refreshed and energized, Griffin and the other sailors got to work building the other 110 replacement lights.
They had been given two days, and by the end of that time every light in the channel was fixed and shining. His job done, Griffin packed up his gear and headed back to Demopolis.
Among all the stories he collected during his time in the Coast Guard, Griffin said Hurricane Katrina was “definitely a defining moment.”
“After that experience, I felt a lot of pride in my job,” Griffin said. “I saw a lot of things there that will always stick with me, and the gratitude of every life saved was an amazing experience. It was also a very sad experience, meeting people that lost everything and even lost family members.”
Near-catastropheon the cliff
One might believe that “Tabs” work would bring him closer to harm. However, his closest confrontation with death may have come when at play.
It happened while Griffin was stationed at Port Angeles, Wash. He and his friend Jimmy, who was also in the Coast Guard, had been given the day off and decided to spend it biking in Olympia National Park.
After riding for a few hours, the two came across a 90-foot cliff face. “Tabs” said he has always loved to climb, and he told Jimmy that he wanted to take a break from biking and see if he could scale the cliff.
Griffin began to climb. As he got up to about 60 feet from the ground, he realized the rock he was climbing on was shale and broke easily.
Griffin said at this point, he would have climbed back down if he could, but as a climber he knew it was much easier to climb up than down without the aid of rope.
Griffin continued to climb. When he got to almost 80 feet up, he got stuck. There were no more hand-holes, and his feet were on a two-inch ledge with nowhere else to rest.
Griffin said he then considered his options. He couldn’t see well enough behind him to go back down, and he had felt above for any place to grab hold of besides the outcropping he was already clinging to.
After about ten minutes of searching, Griffin yelled down to Jimmy to call for help. His fingers were in pain, and his calves were beginning to cramp after remaining flexed for so long.
After about an hour and fifteen minutes of hanging on for dear life, fatigue had set in, and with no sign of a rescue team, Griffin said he thought it was the end for him.
“Jimmy, I want you to promise me something,” Griffin said. “If you see me start to struggle, I mean really struggle, I want you to get on your bike and ride.”
Jimmy argued, but Griffin insisted, knowing that Jimmy was a few years younger and didn’t want him to see one of his best friends fall to his death.
Jimmy never agreed, but fortunately, during the middle of the argument, the park rangers arrived at the cliff face. Griffin said he was holding on for all he was worth, as the team told him that they would have to climb the cliff from the other side and lower him a rope.
The team moved hastily, and after about ten minutes they were yelling down directions for Griffin to follow so that he would not be injured in the rescue.
He did as they said, fastened the rope to himself and was soon pulled to safety.
The rescue team told him that they had never seen anyone hold on in one position for so long without falling.
When he got to the bottom of the cliff, Griffin said he saw Jimmy thanking God for his friend’s safety, and the two embraced.
As he retold he story, Griffin realized that if he had been true to his nickname, he would have noticed right away that the cliff face was shale
“Got to be honest, it probably wouldn’t have stopped me either way,” Griffin said, laughing.
