For some reason I am in a "story telling mode." But first this video.
Now the story ....
It was 1991. I was walking back to the frat house from class at a major university in Illinois. It must have been around 10 AM. I was about a quarter mile from home when I heard what could only be one thing. Our speaker system on stun. You see we lived in a house that was falling down, but for some reason we had like $10,000 speakers.
Did I mention I was the President. I might note the first time I have run for an office and I can assure you the last time. Being in charge can really suck. I was sick of dealing with the University. The police. Just sick of it.
My walk changed from a walk to a jog until I was running back.
I slammed open the door and went to the back bedroom that had the amp. Tim and Keith were throwing everything they owned into their Army issued duffel bags.
Lets step back .....
Tim and Keith were a few years older then myself. They enlisted in the Army out of college. Airborne. Bad ass mother fuckers. I recall once being in a bar. A guy hit a women. One of our friends jumped in. The guy's friends jumped in. Tim and Keith, like something out of a movie, cleared that bar.
They also had the coolest picture I'd ever seen. They were a few of the first Americans on the ground in Panama and tasked with taking Manuel Noriega's compound. It took a few days of fighting house to house to get there. When they did it was empty. But that didn't stop them from stripping down and using his pool as a huge bathtub :).
They were from broken homes. Father either in jail or an abuser (or both). They had lived hard lives. They were using the GI Bill to try to change that. When they got to college and our frat I was asked to mentor them, which is funny cause they were far smarter and more mature then myself.
Their first two semester they both got a 4.0.
Flash back to me standing in their room .....
I went to turn off the stereo and was pushed against the wall. They explained they'd been called up (to Iraq). Neil Young was going to play, and he did on repeat for a number of hours.
I am not so sure why I just wrote that. Other then I think of this song often and what I wrote above.
Keep on rocking in the free world ....