GIVEAWAY #4..... WINNER!!!!!

[xtremelow]

Well as I promised I would tell you all why I picked this. It might be long but here it is.............Winner to follow.

My idea for this started back in a store parking lot. I pulled in with my S-10 which has its modifications all done by friends and myself with my hard earned dollars.

At the time I was a 24yr old USMC Sergeant and had just returned from Iraq, not 2 weeks prior, I simply pulled my truck into a parking spot and lowered it down to park it as it has air suspension. Upon getting out a passerby stopped and made a remark of how a spoiled kid like myself had no clue how hard life is.

This is the point in my life where I realized how we as individuals fail to truly see outside the box. Like I mentioned I had just returned from Iraq, and was in an area nearly every American has heard of Fallujah. I only spent 7 months there but it had been 7 months of hell. I know it was the single largest learning experience in my life and I am sure it will remain throughout. I lost 22 fellow Marines in this short time. I had seen some of their mangled bodies lay about during attacks when they were where they were to help “Get my back.” I came so close to death on more than a handful of times and had to take life to save my own and others on to many occasions.

All of this as my wife who I had been with for over 6yrs was having a romp man after man at my expense, having access to my money. This I found out luckily half way through my deployment so I was able to cut her abilities to get to my cash.

I mention these experiences because they all fall into what I see of what my life’s Pride has spun into. It isn’t that I feel I am better than any person or feel I deserve more than anyone, rather the opposite. I have seen the absolute bottom and climbed through it, coming out a better man. I feel it is my responsibility to make every person’s life I can, better. Whether it is grabbing a door for an old lady, giving a friend my living room set for a moving in gift or buying a car to help out my sister. I live on the energy I receive by helping others, by no means am I rich or even well-off, rather a hard worker who can hold his head high knowing I deserve everything I have.

We all have our ups and downs but in the end it all comes down to what others can say about the person we are or were. I wake each morning with the question, “Why not me?” in respect to the fellow Marines I lost in the war. I try to live everyday to the fullest for those who can’t. I share what I can as much as I can where I can. My life in its self is my Pride, so I do everything to make it worthy of the title.

The man in the parking lot knew nothing of my life yet he judged me in a glimpse, if he had only been more observant he may have noticed the Sergeant sticker on my front window or my Veteran plate and known a portion of what I have lived through, instead he was focused on what he didn’t have in life, blaming others rather than doing something about it. We need not blame others or dread on the not’s rather the have’s in our lives. This giveaway was a focus for us to see what we have in our lives and what we are grateful for.


Brandon

 

[xtremelow]

Runners-Up

Stevenc150:
I've been blessed enough to discover the purest form of pride that I've yet come to know. I and my wife, found it through adoption of our son from Korea. In the end, we all struggle through life looking for something that will remain after we're gone - a legacy of some sort to leave behind. Changing a life, a destiny, is as close as I've come to experiencing this. It's brought more joy than I could have ever hoped would come and it's a blessing that grows by the day. To train a child, to be a person better than you, and hopefully giving that child a better life than they would have had in any foster home or orphanage.

I'm a humble man, but I can't help but take a meager amount of Pride in knowing that our son may never have known the love that we are able to give him. It's a blessing in it's truest form - found within the innocense, happiness, and laughter of a child. Sincerely, One damn proud Father...Stevenc150

03Firebolt9R:
Well, my pride begins in 1990 when I graduated from HS. Being the thug that I was, most people were surprised by the fact that I did actually graduate. I always had the brains for it, maybe too much as I was always bored with it. My motivation for graduating, besides the obvious reasons, were two-fold. One, my girlfriend at the time got pregnant and knowing that forced me to straighten up. Secondly, I knew that I could not stay in the small town and become "one of those people". So, my pride continues after graduation by my joining the US Army and then my beautiful daughter was born shortly after.

I grew up in the Army as did my daughter. Shortly after departing the Army, my HS girlfriend/wife and I divorced. I fought very hard for full custody of my daughter and won. Then, 10 years later in 2008, my daughter graduated from HS and also decided to join the Army as a combat medic. She left for basic in early 2009 and has been in training almost all year and the only communication we have had has been over the phone. But TODAY started their Christmas exodus from Ft. Sam Houston. My current wife and I just returned from the airport after picking up my Daughter, my Pride.




If you all want I can post all the entries, just let me know what the general concensus is????

 

[dave_xb12r]

Congrats Buddha! [up]

 

[BuddhaBuell]

gosh thanks guys.....

I also enjoy leaning abit aboot xtreme, Steven150 and 03Firebolt
thank you for paying it forward guys

[up]

 

[Macbuell]

Very nice guys!

 

[Trill]

Awesome stories!

Buddha since you were from London Ontario, I suppose you know who Dave Rock is?

he has a youtube account called Davesfarm and he is also from London. Just curious.

 

[delta one]

congrats to you guys! [up]

I'll throw mine up there just to share
I wrote mine in more of a story format a while back for an English class



SOLDIER ON

“Oh come on, it doesn’t hurt that bad” these were the words I most commonly heard regardless of the situation. This time my father was telling me that the fatal wound I was blubbering over was in fact nothing at all. As it turned out he was right, in my haste to finish the work we had been doing for the last two hours I had stepped on a large branch at a bad angle allowing my foot to slide off. My failure to firmly plant my foot on the surface I was attempting to walk on resulted in my boot falling below the branch I was stepping on resulting in me twisting my ankle. This precarious miss-step happened while I was carrying some of the wood we would later use to heat our house and the water we used. I fell crashing down onto a fallen tree we had cut down only minutes before, scraping my ribs on the broken limbs, and hitting my face on the large semi-smooth gray chunks of bark on the silver maple that I had been carrying. In an attempt to brace myself from the fall I had also effectively pinned my own wrist between one of my 40 pound logs and the branch that had foiled my step in the first place. Somehow the fact that we were in the middle of the woods at 3:00 on a Saturday during my booming teenage years only seemed to perpetuate my pain.
For the majority of my life I have lived in a “broken home”, but this has never truly affected me as it seems it should. I have no memory of my parents together, so my family life was a state of normality for me. You see my parents split up when just before my third birthday, and from that point on I have bounced back and forth between cites and my respective parents within those strange borders. Each city was different and had different people that I never became familiar with. My mother is responsible for the majority of these changes in my life; it was her instability that led me to live with my father (at least this time).
This was the first summer of my transition; my transition had been from a life that had for the first time become a familiar to me. I had been living with my mother for 5 years and we had up until this last city never stopped in one place for more than a year. Until my change to my father’s house she had chosen to move us over eleven times. Following our last move together, we had lived in the same city for nearly 3 years. Despite the fact that we had changed houses three times; this marked the longest I had remained anywhere. Moving to my father’s marked yet another change that thrust me into another life; in another strange place, with expectations that were never expressed to me. I had transitioned from a world of cul-de-sacs and dark asphalt, into a world of leaf covered paths and green pin holed canopies. Nights that were lit with a single white beacon in the sky and filled with sounds that were eerie and terrifying.
This wilderness setting would become a home to me; within the walls of my father’s house, like all other houses I had lived in before this, alien and strange. Outside of those walls in the open spaces between the trees I was home, the noises that once sounded malevolent were now inviting, even beckoning. Every day I would venture deeper into the trees, trying to get lost in the unfamiliar places. Most commonly I would travel by bicycle, searching out hills and gullies, anything that posed a challenge. The day I truly faced myself was no different; it had been raining out and the ground was slick and the leaves slid around under my tires. The branches that reached out to me in the damp low laying fog like skeleton hands draped in moss, they grabbed, clutching and scratching at my face and arms. My heavy breathing; stagnating the air before me, bathing my face with a warm moisture, and the sour smell of acid with every exhalation. The pumping rhythm of my legs falling in pace with my heart as they both attempted to accomplish the same task, to force or rush something through a narrow pathway traveling both up hills and down through a continuous rhythmic application of force. Stray beams of light flickered at me between the leaves above. When facing injury at every bump turn or loose section of ground the tedious thoughts of the day quickly faded into the background but somehow thoughts on my father keep pushing trough.
“Who is this strange man and what is it he wants from me?” I would think it so loud and hard it would seem to escape my lips in a whisper of breath as I exhaled.
He was always telling me. “You don’t know anything about yourself; I know more of you than you do.” Never words of affirmation that my young teenage heart desired, only the cold cutting words of displeasure.
I remember thinking “I should be careful, I don’t know how far I am from home” and the next thought I had racing through my mind was “whoa! Is that the sun?” I was lying on the ground twisted around my own bike, with the limbs of a fallen tree engulfing me. I was bleeding from every part of my body and I could hardly breathe. I knew it wasn’t from exhaustion because pulse had been steady up until the point when I realized that my arm was pinned under my body and I could not move it. Before taking full inventory of the situation I began to wonder if I would even be able to make it home, and if I did what kind of trouble would I be in?
Certainly my father would take an unforgiving stance on my late return.
“you should have thought of that before you crashed.” He would say in his condescending tone.
Hearing his voice scolding me in my mind brought back other things he had said to me, ever full of army stories he always has a million ways to say “suck it up and soldier on.”
I could never tell you why; because I still haven’t figured it out myself, but lying there helpless and alone for the first time in my life I felt indestructible. I do remember that the change was distinct; it came abruptly out of fear. I was trying to wiggle out of the precarious position I was laying in and the heat of fear washed over me with a wave of cold panic; for the first time in my life I was alone. There were no people around me to help, nobody to hear me if I were to cry out for help. Somehow here alone in a state of not only fear but a state of desperate pain; I found myself, alone and bleeding I was finally getting to know who I was and what made up the person I was, and what I was capable of. Suddenly my body hurt no more, my fear slowly sank into the background as I lifted myself from the dirt.
Later I would discover that I am in fact mortal, but in those moments when I was alone in an unfamiliar place several miles from home, I was stronger. Perhaps it was my father’s voice or perhaps it was a massive level of endorphins released from panic, but it in fact didn’t hurt that bad.
Climbing the last hill with only a few hundred yards of gravel separating myself from home my own mortality was more than evident to me. My bones hurt, my muscles ached, and I was sure that I needed to vomit from the knot in my stomach. No longer could endorphins be attributed to the high I felt, but instead it was pride. Pride for choosing to stand after my fall, pride for not asking for help, and lastly pride for putting one foot in front of the other and carrying myself out of the woods
As I reached for the door knob I felt the voice of my father chilling the air that my own pride had warmed only moments ago. As I opened the door my father was surprisingly not standing there waiting for me.
“Where have you been” he asked from the sofa in the other room
“I crashed my bike.” I cringed awaiting the lecture to come.
“Bad?”
“Yea I think so.”
“How did you get home?”
“I walked most of it.”
“Well way to suck it up, you look a mess. Let me see your wrist, and I’ll get you to a doctor in the morning” his nonchalant tone was somehow more affirming than I had expected. The next week with my broken ribs still healing and homemade stitches in my arms I was back in the woods looking for the slippery trail all over again. Hoping to discover the boy I was, and maybe the man I could one day become, as if in hiding somewhere it the spaces between the trees was a place where my pain could wash away and my true self would come forth the be discovered.



JACK


Well where to begin, he is nearly one and a half years old and one of the happiest kids I have ever met. Now I know that is one of the most common things that parents say about their children but in this case it applies. I am not the only one to think this; everywhere we go it’s one of the most common things people comment on. A few months ago he had a very bad ear infection; this infection also filled his sinuses. You could tell he was in pain, not from his crying but from his face. It was swollen and red around his eyes and cheeks. At times the pressure became so great that a green mucus discharge would erupt from his tear ducts. For nearly two days I would use warm water to clear his eyes off because in addition to the discharge he was also passing more from around is eye, this would dry into a crust if not managed and would soon lock his eyelids shut. And despite how much suffering he was enduring he did it with a smile, he tried to play with his pathetically slow motor functions and weak body. While waiting in the doctor’s office he displayed just how fearless and strong he truly was. Knowing our ultimate destination and showing his displeasure in silence we entered into the waiting room where I had several pamphlets if information that seem to be passed out with every visit. Grasping playfully at the paper in my hand but far too slow to actually grab it he smiled, feeling nothing but heartache for his struggle I offered him the print. This did not satisfy him, in fact it seemed to frustrate him, I had given him his quarry too easily and he felt patronized. In response to this feeling he did not cry out or even sniffle, instead he decided to turn the game around and tease me with the recently exchanged papers. Laughing and giggling through a raspy and strained voice he showed how strong he was to me. After only a few minutes of effort he was exhausted, and began to fuss as he looked for a comfortable position in my arms. I was as tired as he was and filled with a sorrow because by boy was sick and I could do nothing to help him. As if he sensed this he looked up at me and reached for my hand and squeezed out the most genuine and affectionate smile you would ever expect from a Emmy nominated actor. Clearly he was in pain and clearly he was tired and nobody could be truly happy in the state he was in, but he is tougher than his father and was putting on a show to give dad confidence.
This display continued in the doctors exam room, strange instruments waving about before him, poking prodding and chilling him to the bone. Fear washed his eyes but only for a moment, as his father came into view again jacks face went as calm as the sea after a storm, his hands and body still trembled slightly giving away his well hidden fear and anxiety. Pale blue eyes like the sky following a storm searched the room; nothing was hiding behind the doors shadows. Clinging to his father in a few moments of panic the checkup passed without incident. Walking out to the car his effort to play and make merry was obvious; eyelids fluttering against the riptide pull of sleep, head falling from the dead weight of fatigue, and limbs limp drained of all the energy that inflates them. His head resting gently on his father’s shoulder, so brave, so strong, so weary. A sigh escapes his powder white lips as he lets himself relax; the day is nearly over and he has worked hard to protect his father from fear, his rest is warranted and well deserved today. Quietly he sinks into his car seat and drifts off; he will remain asleep until the next morning, nothing wakes him, the small and unintentional hero.

 

[polkiejoe]

[up]
Great life stories guys[up]

 

[xtremelow]

I can post them all if you guys want me too????

 

[Builtdesign]

Very inspiring, I'd like to read the rest of them.

 

[xtremelow]

Well here are the rest in the order I recieved them.

Dave_xb12r:

I own a Buell! That's it.

Flaya564:

My story of pride isn't a tear jerker but makes me feel good. (I work too much.) I'm a graphic designer for a company that primarily does disaster cleanups. They will travel down to Florida after a hurricane and even to Iowa when the hospital got flooded. On occasion, I will need to take pictures for the company at different jobs they may have going on. Recently, After the Nor-east that pasted by, I was sent to Virgnia Beach to document the work that was going on. From moderate water drying to reconstruction to a few hotels. For the first couple of days, I would go around to the different locations taking pictures and watching everyone else busy as hell. It sucked. I was having a huge problem of watching people doing manual labor and me taping it. I felt like some low class paparazzi. About noon on the second day (work day started at 6am) I was done with the "point and click" and videotaping, of work being done. I put done my equipment and picked up the workers, and went at it. Being placed where ever they need me and working twice as hard for feeling useless. I was there for 7 days and busted my ass for 5 of them. Mind you, the workers were getting paid hourly with hazard and overtime pay, I was salary. I didn't require a thank you or anything like that but I definitely received a ton of respect which meant alot more.

Macbuell:

I do have a great deal of motorcycle and buell pride so I will try to go that route I was born the youngest in my family with 3 sisters. Growing up my parents never let me have anything motorized. No dirt-bikes, no snowmobiles, no go-carts or anything. Nothing like that has ever interested my parents so they just brushed it off. My 3 older sisters, thinking they are wiser, shot down the idea of me getting a motorcycle immediately. My closest in age sister said she would stop talking to me. Middle sister told me no way. Oldest sister said she would buy a plane ticket, fly to see me, and set the bike on fire. This was all about a year ago when I first started seriously talking about buying a bike. 5 months later in may of 2009 I bought a bike despite everything my family thought. None of them ever did do any of the things they said they would if I bought a bike. Since then, in the last 7 months I have shown them that owning a motorcycle for the first time is not an guaranteeing death right away. I have been able to convince and take my Mom, Dad, and one sister on the bike since I bought it. Having never been down or in a close call I have so far convinced them motorcycles are a little safer. My proudest moment is when my Dad actually takes interest in my buell. He see's me working on it and just watches occasionally asking what I am doing and why. This pride is a work in progress though which will climax when I convince my dad to buy a bike and go for rides with me. That is the day I look forward to. Thanks for reading! Hope I did not bore you and it made sense.

Dragbikezx07:

It was around april(ish) 2006. My family drag races motorcycles and racing at the time was my Father and Brother. My dad has been racing for about 20 years and has few wins to show from it(unfortunately). Well our first race of the season was coming up and we were still working on our bikes. We were less than a week away and we didn't have anything running so we thrashed all week to get things done. My dad decided to drive down to texas(from Ny) for a new ride for me to ride later that season. So he left me and my bro hanging with no bikes running. Our raceday is fridays and we wanted the bike to be running thursday night but we werent able to do so. So Friday we arrive at the track with bike 95% done. 20 mins before our first pass we got it fired up. Time flew by the next couple hours(/rounds) and before we knew it my brother was in the finals. Final round and my brother wins. It was his first win ever(after 3yrs racing and dad wasn't there). Thats the first bit of pride, knowing that all our hard work the days prior paid off for that win. But our real pride came at the end of that season. We were able to win the championship thats where everything paid off. I had pride in me knowing that we worked hard all season and the championship was ours.

loser54023:

I have pride in being a JUGGALO. Being from Michigan you may have heard of the insane clown posse. A juggalo is a follower of thier music. when your a juggalo your part of the hatchet family. just the other day i was at the bar where i saw another juggalo. didn't know him but could tell he was a juggalo, when he walked by i gave him a whoop whoop and instantly he knew what i was. we talked awhile and it was like we were family. it's kind of like when you run into another buell rider. you feel a kinship in sharing love for something. welli guesthat's it i'll give a whoop whoop and a MMFCL.

delta one: He already posted his

Thanks for everyone for the entries and the opportunity to do the Giveaways.

Brandon[up][up]

 

[Guiness63]

Hey extreme, Very well said. I can relate in so many ways to what you have gone through. What unit were you with? I was deployed with 3/7 in 03 and 04. God Bless you brother. Semper Fi.

 

[xtremelow]

I was with 1/24, yes a reserve unit.... Blah blah, but none the less I seen more than most active guys, to include many friends who went active, not the same as it use to be.

Guiness, do you know a Greg Slamka, tall dude that was a Sniper with 3/7, they are out of 29 Palms if I remember right.

 

[Stevenc150]

Some great reads guys. [up]

I feel it is my responsibility to make every person’s life I can, better. Whether it is grabbing a door for an old lady, giving a friend my living room set for a moving in gift or buying a car to help out my sister. I live on the energy I receive by helping others, by no means am I rich or even well-off, rather a hard worker who can hold his head high knowing I deserve everything I have.

I teach Middle-schoolers in Sunday School class. This is the answer to their question: What's this life for?
By giving, you recieve so much more than taking. Well said Xtreme.

 

[xtremelow]

A bit more outright but a saying I have sort of lived by is:

"Better to live for Something, Rather than Die for Nothing"

Basically is a saying I had to justify Dying in combat but can be interpreted to mean take action and do what needs to be done to make life better, rather than going through the motions to simply wish you had done this or that later in life once it is to late.

I agree once you reach the point in your life you can realize everything is a gift, you are tuely able to enjoy all you have.







[smirk]

 

[onelogue]

Great stories guys!! I am young and have much more life to experience but good to know that there guys coming out on top from very tough situations.

Not to sound Cheesy but my bike is a constant reminder to me that hard work pays off!!

 

[Guiness63]

Extreme, what years was he there? Name sounds wicked familiar

 

[xtremelow]

End of 2001-2006 He was a Cpl when he got out, he is actually a member on here, although he has only posted a couple times. He has a Uly. here is a pic of him. He had a little more hair up front when he was in.

 

[xtremelow]

Is that your last name?

 

[buellxb]

WOW! I don't even feel worthy to be running this forum. What a great group of people we have here. Thanks for the giveaway Xtremelow and congrats to the winner and runners up. [up]