Can you describe how you felt coming home from a deployment or combat?

"War Without Tears"

On any Sunday, from Texas to Michigan, from California to New York, people do it. People do it from Sweden to Holland, from Belgium to Russia. People do it from Britain to Brazil. Do what you might ask? Simple, travel vast distances to do battle with one another. They travel to wage war amongst marauding invaders to their turf, against enemies from near and far. War is a misrepresented force in Human Nature. What is confidence but aggression that has learned to get what it wants through subtler means?
Motocross in all its magnificent splendor and diversity is truly a war without tears. Every man woman or child who has slung a leg over a high-powered race bike, donned helmet and war paint and run headlong into the unknown of the first turn knows what war feels like. Time stands still as loud noises fade to the rear most part of your brain. Adrenaline flows through your veins until your fingertips tingle with anticipation and alertness. You are high as a kite on your body’s own chemicals. Speed and danger are mere afterthoughts as you jostle for position with the riders around you, next to you and in front of you. Your mechanical steed bounces and hops underneath you yet you are only barely aware of it; your focus is laser-like on the upcoming obstacles.
All over the world on any Sunday scenes like these take place as the morning dew settles to Mother Earth. While the best riders on the Grand Prix circuit and the U.S. National circuits are suiting up with anticipation and adrenaline, so too are we Amateur racers undergoing similar transformations. The shy high school kid with the funny freckles dons his brightly-colored gear, puts on his custom painted battle helmet. He is no longer just another gangly eighteen year-old; he is the fastest thing to come out of the District in years. His lack of speed at the Track and Field, and Football try outs are all forgiven for when he has the assistance of a mighty motocross machine, he becomes a machine himself… a flowing, growing, growling amalgamation of humanity and steel, borne to traverse the boundaries of bombed out craterous pieces of terrain with grace and ease. He was born to navigate the obstacles of the mind/body threshold.
On the other side of the world, a different eighteen year old is experiencing all of the same feelings but he is involved in an altogether different battle. He is laying on his belly, hunched behind the protection of a twenty million dollar piece of armored ordinance hurler… an M1A Abrams tank. The sounds that have faded into the rear of his mind are not those of a pack of thundering motocross bikes; they are the sounds of pieces of lead being hurled above him at ungodly speeds. Adrenaline has not blocked out the thunder of a pack or YZF four-strokes; it has blocked a pack of hungry F-18 Hornet fighter jets as they strafe the terrain less than a hundred yards away. The vision his eyes strain to see is not that of a whooped out, chewed up motocross track but that of buildings, cars and other signs of a former city being obliterated within a matter of seconds. The rising dust cloud above his location isn’t the remnant of a forty rider start, but that of ashes from what is left of the terrain after thousands of pounds of ordnance have leveled the area to rubble.
This battle-worn teenager’s mind wanders for a few seconds to the world he left behind, to the world he has made his young mind up to defend with strength and honor. He has made up his mind to protect and defend these United States of America at all costs, even if the debt is to be paid with the ultimate sacrifice… his life. By the time you read this, you no doubt will have seen Operation Iraqi Freedom come to a close. After months of fighting with a tough and extremely devious enemy, we can declare proudly that America stood its ground and commanded a decisive victory on the side of right thinking. Hooray, we won!!! All the men and women involved should be congratulated.
I write this article not to inflame the passions of those who were opposed to our being there in the first place; I write this to remind all of us on both sides of this debate that whether or not we agreed with our Commander in Chief, the American thing to do is to support the young men and women who put themselves in harm’s way so that we can continue to play our moto-war games here in the States and around the world without incident. I have seen one too many Hollywood “celebrity” abuse their fame by turning award shows and any photo-op into their own opportunistic political agendas aimed solely at bashing the President.
I tend to trust our military minds a lot more than I do the minds of these often high school dropouts who make way too much money and have way too much time on their hands. While they pretend to be brave men and women in dangerous situations, the American soldiers are brave men and women in bad situations. The soldiers earn real heroism, as do we motocross racers. Where were these celebrity types on September 12th when New Yorkers needed their support, or September 11th when the Twin Towers burned to the ground? Nowhere to be found; they were too busy hiding trying to save their own asses. These idiot actors claim that our government needs to let the public know more of what they are doing in this matter is utter nonsense!
As a twenty-five year employee of the telephone company in New York, I ask you, do you know everything there is to know about how the telephone company operates or why it does what it does on a daily basis? Of course you don’t! You don’t need to; you only need to now that the best is being done to help your cause and that when you pick up the phone you hear dial tone. So why then do these celebrities insist that they must know absolutely everything that goes on in matters of far greater importance than simple dial tone? In the name of national defense we as citizens shouldn’t know everything that pertains to our government's involvement in Iraq or any other country that presents a threat to American people and interests?
The Iraqi people who came out in droves to vote for the first time in generations seemed to think the work our brave American soldiers are doing was pretty important. One Iraqi soldier, in a show of reverence for the newfound freedoms the American soldiers' efforts granted him, crawled on his hands and knees from his home ten miles away to the polling place. Even the terrorists who were killing Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi policemen left him alone... Courage under fire and commitment to cause like that cannot be scripted by writers like me, it comes from decisions made by the few, the proud, and the brave.
In months past, I have had to good fortune to install phone lines for a man named John (last name withheld at his request to protect his identity), an advisor for the United Nations Security Counsel’s anti-terrorism commitee. I’ve leaned from him that we are not as safe as we think we are and that for every news report of a thwarted terror attempt in America, there are dozens more that are blocked from national news services in the interest of national security. It would be too disturbing for the average American to know how many times these “poor, innocent” fanatics from the Middle East have been trying to do us harm.
A bit of advice to those who didn’t know what I now know: be grateful for the superior minds and for the unyielding courage of those who are doing the very best they can to keep this country safe and sound. A special word of thanks to National Pro racer Joe Oehlhof whose brother Rick who is "in country" as we speak. Also to our own Rupert X Pellet's wife who is a career soldier. Also for Nigel DeCoster, a statesman with the US military and his younger brother Kitch, a Marine fighting in Iraq. I pray for all of our soldiers' safe return to our shores after their job is finished. The next time you see a service man or woman in uniform acknowledge them, let them know you are behind them one hundred percent. They will probably be impressed that you are a motocross racer as well. In closing and on behalf of all the grateful motocrossers in the US: " THANK YOU ARMED FORCES." God Bless you and God bless America!!!