We were soldiers once. . . and young. That’s how Lieutenant General ‘Hal’ Moore titled his book about the first, major battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam in 1965. That is exactly how I felt when I recently rode motorcycles with some of my friends; many, legends in the Special Forces and other government agencies, including a former Special Forces soldier and friend who became the Team Leader of the first CIA team into Afghanistan (read “First Casualty”, the story of the Horse Soldiers). When we were younger, we all thought we were invincible and shrugged off pain as weakness leaving the body. Not the best for long-term health as some of us slowly killed our kidneys with maximum doses of ibuprofen (Motrin) while we continued to push ourselves, running on a broken ankle in my case because no one wants to be a quitter.
Now, we are all retired Special Forces and continue to meet throughout the year and all over the continent. We ride motorcycles, swap stories, and reminisce about the times, the hard times, and the harder times when we were young. At 70, I am the youngest of the bunch and must strive to keep up with them. The oldest finally hung up his motorcycle leathers at 85, but more out of deference to his also aging wife, who has been losing her sight to degenerative macular disease.
Thinking you were invincible was how you survived when you were kicking doors open and busting into a room where bad guys were holding hostages. You had to think you were invincible because if you were in front of me and were shot, I could not afford for you to slow down or think about the pain. I needed you to keep moving so I did not become the next casualty.
We jumped from building to building, jumped from the second floor of buildings down to the first floor with tens of ponds of gear on and just kept moving after days of no sleep. We thought we were indestructible and our feats of endurance and never quit attitudes reinforced our confidence in ourselves.
Now, what enemy bullets, social and sometimes family abandonments for months at a time could not do, time and age are accomplishing one day and one soldier at a time. It seems like every week I learn of a new diagnosis of cancer in a former colleague. Coronary artery disease attacks us all, but some succumb to heart attacks while others face what they consider to be a worse punishment, living life in the ‘slow’ lane and being confined to a chair or bed. Not the vision we had when we were living in the ‘fast’ lane and totally focused on mission accomplishment.
My former, special, counterterrorism unit has a restricted site where we can post pictures and contact those we lived and deployed with. Soldiers, whom we thought were some of the toughest, most fit individuals we knew, had their names posted in memorial or with condolences in a short paragraph, telling when and where the services were or would be. It feels like a piece of me cut out every time I read another.
This last motorcycle trip hit me the hardest, when only one of my other Special Forces comrades showed up in Vermont. I rode 1,500 miles to be there and sadly, many who were physically closer couldn’t make the trip because of health issues. As the motorcycling and veteran community continues to grow older, we see less people riding in and more people trailering their motorcycles into the various rally sites. It slowly dawns on me that I am growing older with an older crowd whose past has finally begun to take its long-term toll on their bodies.
One of my former classmates here in El Dorado Springs said to me at breakfast the other day, “If you were just able to finish a 4,000-mile motorcycle ride, you’re not in too bad of shape.” It was a bright spot in my day. Gee, he was right. That’s a long way for anyone, let alone a 70-year-old man. Especially the day when it poured rain on me the entire day as I rode from Vermont through upper Michigan to Wisconsin.
My cousin in Oklahoma posted a picture of a guy driving a sports car and the caption read, “Remember, today is the youngest you’ll ever be . . . act like it.” That really hit home with me. Why am I worried about all my friends and myself getting older and dying? Tomorrow I will only be older and slower than today. I need to stop wasting my time worrying about how I’m becoming less capable and start using all my ‘youthful’ capabilities today . . . while I still can!
After seeing how all my old colleagues were slowing down after years of either physically abusing their bodies beyond the normal limits of human pain and endurance, I came home with the stark realization that at 70, I was now officially in the old man category. Still hard to think like that. I can only hope I don’t act like that. It did give me new inspiration to motivate and inspire others to live their lives to the fullest.
Don’t become the person whose only activity is changing the batteries in their television remote control. Get out, walk, start or improve your garden, go fishing, or go on a picnic. Do something! Because the cells inside your body aren’t waiting for you, they are full of activity and aging as you read this. You notice that your eyes, ears, and nose are all becoming less acute. What you don’t notice is that your heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver are also going down the same road.
So live life to the fullest today because today is the youngest you’ll be for the rest of your life!
Danny Leo Green,
Coroner, Cedar County.
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