Book Excerpt: Toasting a Hero

Only in NASCAR could a regular fan get selected like Willy Wonka’s Charlie Bucket, led to the limelight, celebrated like he’d won the Golden Ticket, and permanently enter the sport’s lore.

That happened to wounded Marine Russ Friedman, who wrote an essay urging more support for the military and wound up as the namesake of a NASCAR race in Richmond attended by 100,000 people.

Walking the track on race day with Russ, a regular guy from Long Island, who went fluke fishing the previous night, is a surreal journey into the modern-day celebrity-making machine.  The Russ Friedman name is everywhere. If one fan said to another, “Meet me by the Russ Friedman sign,” it could mean thousands of different places in these parts.  The frequent repeated sighting of your name all over the place in giant letters must be like strolling the streets of Manhattan when your driver’s license says “Trump.”
            Outside of closing your eyes, there’s no escaping the unmistakable Crown Royal Presents the Russ Friedman 400 signs, backdrops, banners and posters. The man’s name is on the tickets, the souvenir programs, purple T shirts fans are wearing, TV ads hyping the race, hats the winning driver and his team will don in Victory Lane, and of course on the giant Russ Friedman 400 logo painted in the grass next to the front stretch.

Double-taking fans spotting newly famous Russ have that bemused “Don’t-I-know-you-from-TV-Not-America’s-Most-Wanted-But-Maybe-American-Idol?” expression on their faces.  Fans do what comes natural.  They offer Sharpies for an autograph.  The 27-year old Marine obliged with smiles and laughs.  After speaking from the gut in the VFW hospitality tent about keeping alive the memory of our troops’ sacrifices, he received a standing ovation. Clapping men in wheelchairs, unable to rise up, sat taller.  A brother was getting his fair due.

Whirling to his next appearance on a golf cart, Russ admitted these nods of assent – from muscular young bucks with razor-sharp crew cuts and weary white-bearded men in stiff-crowned ball caps declaring their military affiliation, these knowing expressions of mutual understanding, signaling, “We get it, we hear what you’re saying, we feel it, we too were there” – meant more than all the combined press interviews and autograph requests.

In a few hours, Jeff Gordon, now aging in front of fans’ eyes with a daughter on pit road and gray-flecked sideburns sneaking down his face, might win The Russ Friedman 400. Or maybe it will be fan favorite Mark Martin, still full of smiles and aw-shucks gratitude at 50 years old following an emotional win two weeks ago at Phoenix.  Or maybe it will be young Brian Vickers who streaked fastest around the ¾-mile track to capture the poll while the nodding vets applauded Russ. Whoever takes the checkered flag, Russ Friedman will be in Victory Lane to present the trophy.  And rightly so.  His name is etched on that hardware.  It’s his race. 

But calling Russ a regular guy is not entirely accurate.  He’s a Marine from Huntington Station, NY, deployed to Iraq in 2001 weeks after the devastating surprise attacks on his city 35 miles west, promoted to sergeant, injured on a mission, returned to service, blown up more severely, sent home and awarded 2 Purple Hearts.

The first incident occurred in the town of Husayba outside of Bagdad while on a routine patrol. An improvised explosion device hidden in a pile of brush on the side of the road went off, shooting a load of hot shrapnel into Russ’s arm.  With a bandaged limb, Russ rejoined his unit. 

Six days later, he wasn’t so lucky.  The U.S. base outside Husayba was taking mortar fire.  Russ’s Quick Reaction Force was sent to locate the enemy.  The Marines were ambushed.  Russ ran to an abandoned building for a better angle to return fire. A rocket-propelled grenade blasted into the building, leaving shrapnel in his back, legs and shoulders, while severing a nerve in his left arm. 

Russ didn’t know how badly he was hurt until he looked down and saw blood filling up his boot.  He credits his vest and helmet for saving his life.  This time, with shrapnel wounds in his leg, back, arm and shoulder, he was going home.  He was med-evaced to a triage center then airlifted to Germany, which next to Iraq and Afghanistan is the military’s most-visited country among soldiers hooked to feeding tubes and beeping electronic devices monitoring their vitals.

“That kind of thing unfortunately comes with the territory,” Friedman said, dismissing wounds that would earn him the military’s highest honor.  “You sign up knowing the risks and consequences.  It’s similar to a NASCAR driver hitting the wall at 200 mph.  It’s part of what you do.”

The Marine made it back to his boyhood home to recuperate.  The adjustment from heart-thumping, adrenaline-fueled missions to resting at his family’s home in Huntington Station wasn’t easy.  Yet his medical ordeal would truly begin when it was time to get the arm operated on.  On a Long Island highway, Russ was driving to the Northport VA Medical Center for surgery on his arm.  An Iraqi insurgent jumped in front of his car.  At least that’s what he saw, clear as day.

Russ veered off the road flush into a telephone pole.  I’d list all the bones he broke, but we’d run out of room. He woke up in a head-to-toe body cast like a character in the film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Ironically, the injuries brought by visions in his head were significantly worse than those imparted by the insurgents’ bombs.

Following the car accident, Russ was laid up in the hospital for 18 months.  He recovered, and met his fiancé April Willmott.  They shared a passion for NASCAR – Russ rooting for Tony Stewart “who tells it like it is” and April pulling for Jimmie Johnson “only because Chad Knaus is his crew chief, this is a team sport, and Chad brought that team three championships.” 

As their relationship bloomed, Russ and April found a grounding common interest in NASCAR. They watched races on the big screen TV at home, collected merchandise and started taking weekend trips to attend NASCAR events races.  Each had different “wish list” of races.  Already displaying problem-solving relationships skills that will surely allow them to avoid counseling in years to come, the couple created a tidy method for choosing the races – drawing names from a hat.  Once, Phoenix was picked.  Another time it was Charlotte. And one track selected was Richmond for the Dan Lowry 400 – named after a fan who won a contest for sharing the best Crown Royal celebratory toast. 

When Russ found out “Dan Lowry” wasn’t a company, he decided to compete for personal naming rights to the next “Your Name Here” race.  But he added a twist.  It wouldn’t be about him.  No, Russ was just doing his job overseas, and to be honest, so many had sacrificed so much more, not only in the Marines but every branch of the military.  He worried that with all the crises happening in the world – brought to an edgy public via an endless CNN breaking news ticker – American troops, particularly the wounded warriors returning home, were being forgotten.  No, this wasn’t about Russ Friedman.  Not at all.  He wrote an essay calling for the race to be named THE U.S. ARMED FORCES 400.  That would help get his band of brothers the attention they deserved.  But, in a series of conversations that could have been dialogue lifted from a Joseph Heller novel, government bureaucracy wouldn’t permit the use of Friedman’s proposed race name.

“Why that didn’t happen is a decision way beyond my pay grade,” Friedman said.  “But the important thing was that Crown Royal let me make it completely about supporting our troops and showing them we’re all behind them.  They are protecting us and our freedoms.  There is no second guessing.  They are doing the right thing.”

The blunt sincerity of Friedman’s words, a direct and passionate plea for all Americans to acknowledge sacrifices being made on a grand scale, resonated with executives at Crown Royal.  He was selected the contest winner.  Friedman then wound up in another hospital.  But this time it was with Sprint Cup Series driver Jamie McMurray on a goodwill tour of McGuire VA Hospital near the track in Richmond to thank the troops.

On a misty May day in 2009, the NASCAR driver and Marine circulated among a group on injured soldiers on a patio outside the hospital.  The men formed a large semi-circle, a stunning wheelchair brigade.  For the word “sacrifice” in the dictionary, this could be the photo.  In the middle of all those wheelchairs were several men on flat gurneys.  They were on their stomachs, elbows bent and forearms pressed into folded pillows to prop up their bodies, arching their backs into a position you’d see on the mats in a yoga class.  Except the men’s legs were gone.

            As the wounded warriors waited patiently, Jamie McMurray signed 8x10 cards with his photo on one side and career driving stats on the other.  In the world of sports, these are commonly called “hero cards,” a description demonstrated this afternoon to be wildly inaccurate.

Inside the hospital, several veterans with fresher wounds confining them to their rooms waited for personal visits.  One solider who couldn’t use his arms sucked on a long rubbery straw attached to the portable TV.  I’d never seen an oxygen tank attached to a TV.  Then I realized he was using the straw to change the channel.  He’d been in the hospital six months and watches all the NASCAR races on that small TV dangling less than two feet from his face. 

Another soldier was propped in bed at an awkward angle, his frail broken body sinking into a bank of pillows.  There were more pillows than what remained of the body.  Long red belts streamed down his bare torso. Taped to the wall was a color snapshot before the injury: a smiling young recruit, arms proudly crossed, muscles rippling below a faded green t-shirt.  Next to the photo, a hand-printed sign read, “Please do not wake patient to tell him you are turning him or performing wound therapy.  Just perform action.”

The young Marine from West Virginia, who now has to look at that photo if he ever wants to see his legs, wowed Jamie and Russ with a remarkable sense of humor that must have been piped in from heaven.  In a deliberate southern drawl, slow from growing up in the south, or perhaps from having to catch your breath after a portion of your side had been blown away by a bomb, he deadpanned to McMurray, “I don’t watch your Crown Royal car.  But I do drink Crown Royal.”

McMurray was wearing a short-sleeve knit shirt smartly emblazoned with his sponsor’s fancy logo.  The Marine commented he’d love to have a fine garment like that. The NASCAR driver took off the fresh garment, signed it, and handed it over. Without a second thought, McMurray gave him the shirt off his back.

McMurray, Russ, April and I visited the Spinal Cord Injury Ward and the Polytrauma unit, which we learned is comprised of soldiers with more than one serious injury.  Russ had spent serious time in VA hospitals.  But it was still like a bucket of cold water poured on his head to witness in room after room after room the multitude of ravaged soldiers slowly healing.  So many young bodies, broken, battered, scarred, twisted, and utterly destroyed by war. 

The government built this hospital – the 2nd largest building in Virginia – next to a rail road line to efficiently unload injured WW II troops from rail cars. I wanted to proclaim with heartfelt outrage the senselessness of war and all the destruction it brings.  But that would unjustly besmirch the honor, bravery and sacrifice of Russ and his brothers.  It would only show how much I need to learn about unconditional service to your country.

There was no bitterness in the air.  The extraordinary veterans in this sprawling hospital are too broken to sit for a day at a desk job.  Yet, none expressed any regrets about the outcome of their service.  In fact, if they had their former bodies back, to a man they’d high tail it back to the front lines in Iraq.  It would take a long time to process the concepts of duty and honor on display.

 “The first thing the soldiers talk about is they want to get better to get back overseas to join their brothers and sisters and fight,” Jamie McMurray said as we walked to another unit.  “There’s an incredible selflessness.  Russ is just like that – a very giving person.  His first response to the contest was to give back to the military.  It says a lot about the guy.”

Russ Friedman, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, fits the central casting mold of a truly selfless American hero.  At the track, he was a good sport in putting on a purple crown for promotional photos, playing the role of Race King in Victory Lane as Kyle Busch rolled in his battered car and dove into the arms of his crew.  He graciously played the part to get out his message, sitting for countless interviews, tirelessly deflecting attention to the men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces.  

“I don’t deserve special praise,” Russ said.  “We’re all together as a band of brothers.  This is about them.  My name was on the tickets and the programs, but behind me is every single man and woman representing the armed forces, along with all of their families.”

As his race weekend wound down and Saturday night turned into Sunday in a champagne-drenched Victory Lane, April looked at Russ and asked, “Are we really here?”

Following his tour overseas, making the toughest adjustment, the one inside your head, Russ may sometimes see things that don’t exist.  But this of course was real with April’s husband-to-be was at the center of it all.  For a reserved regular guy from Long Island who doesn’t enjoy the spotlight, Russ Friedman was an ambassador for the ages, beautifully serving the military, his sponsor, NASCAR and every fan. 

One weekend in May, NASCAR’s traveling road show stopped in Richmond, Virginia, and Russ Friedman owned the joint. Wonka had turned over the keys, and it was Russ Friedman’s chocolate factory.  The M&Ms driver, Kyle Busch, even won the race.

As Russ and April strolled from Victory Lane hand in hand toward the garage where tools were being slammed into boxes, cars loaded, and race haulers rolling towards the infield tunnel and the next stop on the circuit, I heard Russ say this: “Sweet!”

 
More stories like Russ Friedman’s can be found in The Weekend Starts on Wednesday: True Stories of Remarkable NASCAR Fans by Andrew Giangola, available anywhere fine books are sold.