Iraq, Crossfit and Victory 400

     Why Victory 400?  Running 310 miles over 9 days.  What gives Mike?  Sit back, lower the T.V. or close your home office door.  Go get a glass of water.....here we go.  My dad is a Vietnam Veteran.  A United States Marine.  He was in northern Vietnam operating in and around the Chu Li river conducting combat operations.  Talk of Vietnam was almost nonexistent.  Sure he'd tell me stories of firefights, engaging the enemy or pulling his buddies body to safety only to have them die in his arms.  Pops was 19 years old.  Those stories were "cool".  They had the "wow" factor.  Dad was a high school track star and attended East L.A. college.  During his second year of college, he dropped out and enlisted in the Marine Corps.  That was the thing to do.  Growing up, every time we heard the National Anthem play my old man would always say "I get goose bumps every time I hear it".  Whatever dad.  His dad, my grandfather, was a bombardier over the skies of Italy in WWII,  his brother, my dad's uncle, was a Marine who stormed the beaches of Iowa Jima and engaged the enemy in hand to hand combat (Uncle Gus is his name) and he has the scars to prove it.  When I buried my grandmother in 2003, I met another uncle (his name escapes me, dammit Mike) who was with the 1st Cavalry Division, Air Mobile, 7th Cavalry Regiment, Garry Owen.  A door gunner on a UH-1H.  I can only wonder what their eyes have seen.
     Our family is not special.  There are families out there that have military lineage dating back to WWI and earlier.  My brother Rick was the first to enlist and I followed in 1992.  Little did I know that serving in Iraq would forever change my life.  Odum's death was life changing but the first fallen American you see in the flesh is a burned image that no matter how hard you try to blank your mind, that mental picture will never fade, never blow away, never get lost, never misplaced.  I can still see this young man's body laying there.  While putting his personal effects into a bag I couldn't help but think that he put his own wallet in his pocket with his own hand hours before.  And here I am putting his personal affects into a bag.  Seeing it only once is enough.  I wonder if his buddies held him before he died.
     The idea for a fundraiser benefiting our servicemen and women weighed heavily on me for years.  Once I pitched the idea to Rick last summer the only stipulation was to utilize the Crossfit way.  Ok, done deal.  I can swing from a bar, lift a bar over my head and swing a kettlebell while combining my passion to continue to give back to our country, while looking great naked, learning to Crossfit with my love of running as the anchor....well...a winning combination.  If you just talk to your fellow Crossfitters you'll find Crossfit has seriously changed lives.  Transforming good Americans to be more confident, physically stronger, healthier, lose weight...insert your personal favorite.  Crossfit is the way to go.  And those hero WODs...Forgit a' about it.  Hero WOD's are our way to pay our respect and never forget those hereos that made the ultimate sacrifice so we may continue to live freely.  
     American servicemen and women, Crossfit and Victory 400.  Great Americans and a noble cause.  I can think of many a great Americans.  Pat Tillman comes to mind.  A patriot who felt the need to serve.  The picture below is an article I saved about Pat and his decision to join the military.  I've kept that article from July 2002.  That piece of parchment was taped on my bathroom mirror along with pictures of SGT Kieth and SGT Clemons as motivation to the "why" of Victory 400.
     Being nice, respectful, cordial or just smile at your fellow American costs you nothing.  Free.  Libre.  Do something nice for someone.  Come to think of it, doing something nice for someone is one of my personal rules of the day.  But that's another story.  Tomorrow is for the Pat Tillman's of the world, the uncle that you had no idea they served, the Crossfitter that got just one more kip or for that person you opened the door for despite them not saying thanks.  About those goosebumps my dad gets when he hears the National Anthem.  Well, I get them too now along with a huge lump in my throat.  Every time.  For the Great Americans.  Football is on baby, first and ten and I'm throwing a 38 mile Hail Mary pass smack into New Braunfels.