Veterans to ride along with Newman at Phoenix

When the green flag drops for Sunday's race at Phoenix International Raceway, Ryan Newman will not be alone when he takes to the track in his No. 39 Chevrolet.

Riding along with him on the U.S. Army-sponsored car will be the faces of more than 500 men and women who have served in the military in a Veterans Day weekend tribute. Thursday is Veterans Day.

"You talk about inspiration," Newman said. "What could be better than having more than 500 of the bravest men and women ride along with you?"

Luis Rodriguez Jr., an 85-year-old veteran of World War II whose photo will be one of those adorning Newman's car, will be a special guest of Newman's race team this weekend. Rodriguez is a resident of Sahuarita, Ariz.

When it was announced via social-networking sites and on NASCAR.COM that the Army car was soliciting veterans to send photos and tell their stories, the public relations firm handling the effort was overwhelmed with responses from veterans and their families. Many of their stories were not only inspiring, but heart-breaking.

Honoring a trio

LaNita Herlem pushed to have three photos placed on the car -- of her late husband, Bryant A. Herlem, who was killed in Iraq in 2006; of her grandfather, Edward Peter Sowder, who fought in World War I and was a Purple Heart recipient; and of herself. She served in the Army for two years before being medically discharged in 1990. She met her late husband while both were in the Army.

"I was at the language school in Monterey, Calif., and he was stationed at Ford Ord across Monterey Bay. Ord's not open anymore, but that's how we met -- in the Army," she said.

SFC Bryant Herlem

She introduced her late husband to NASCAR, and they enjoyed watching races together.

"I'm actually from Martinsville," LaNita Herlem said. "My husband was from Whittier, Calif., and he knew nothing about NASCAR until he married me. Then he didn't have much choice in the matter.

"He liked Dale Earnhardt. He would sit down and watch it until Dale Earnhardt got killed. After that, he would ask me about it and occasionally would sit down and watch it with me -- but it just wasn't the same for him after Dale Earnhardt died. He followed it through me.

"I'm a NASCAR addict. ... I live in Kannapolis [N.C.] now. I still stay pretty up-to-date with the NASCAR stuff."

LaNita Herlem was speaking with her husband about NASCAR only hours before he was killed in an IED attack in Baghdad in April 2006.

"Our last conversation before he got killed was the weekend they were honoring Dale Earnhardt down in Talladega, where DEI had the black cars," she said. "Our last conversation I was telling him about the cars and how cool it was and how they were practicing and everything. He was killed three hours after we talked."

She added that she stays in touch with other Army widows through social-networking sites and that she's not the only one fired up about having their loved ones on Newman's car this weekend.

"I talked quite often with other Army widows, and I know several others whose husbands' pictures are going to be on the car also," Herlem said. "We were chatting about it on Facebook; there are a lot of widows out there, not just me, who are very excited about it. I'm the only one who's going to have three pictures on there, though."

He finally gets to go

Linnea Wilson is the daughter of Tom Wilson, who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1991 after serving 22 years in the Army, including three tours in Vietnam. Tom Wilson always wanted to attend a NASCAR race in person, but something got in the way every time. Usually, his daughter said, what got in the way was her father's generous heart. He was always helping others.

Last year on Linnea's birthday, her father surprised her by buying tickets to a race at Martinsville.

"My Dad had gotten these tickets -- and initially he was going to go, but then he couldn't because of work. My Mom and I went instead," she said. "But we always talked about him and I going together to any race; he specifically wanted to go to the Daytona 500. We talked about it and tried to plan it out to try and go."

They thought they had a plan. But by then Tom was under a great deal of stress, trying to help his father -- Linnea's grandfather -- as the veteran of three wars battled complications from a heart attack and colon cancer. Within a period of 10 days, Tom Wilson not only lost his father but then also his mother, Linnea's grandmother, as well.

Lt. Col. Tom Wilson

The stress of the losses of his parents, Linnea said, eventually proved to be too much. Within 30 days of watching his father lose his life, Tom Wilson suffered a massive heart attack and lost his own as well. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery after Linnea helped push to make it happen, figuring it was the proper way to honor her father.

"It's funny now, but I used to always say, 'Hey, Dad, what do you want us to do when you pass away? Do you want us to try to have you buried at Arlington Cemetery?' And he would always say, 'No, no. I don't deserve it. I'm not worthy.' That kind of thing," Linnea Wilson said.

"But that's sort of how he lived his whole life. He had that mentality. He always put everyone else before himself. Even when in the military, he always put everyone before himself."

She said she learned of countless examples, such as when her father, then a platoon leader, would try to sooth frightened younger soldiers by walking the point with them during harrowing scouting missions in Vietnam. After retiring from the Army, Tom Wilson worked in the Pentagon as a civilian for many years and would have been killed in the September 2001 terrorist attack if circumstances had been only slightly different.

"Had he continued to work there instead of going on to other things, or had he gone to a particular meeting that day, he would have been one of those killed at the Pentagon on 9-11," Linnea Wilson said. "One of the things I remember about that day was that he said nine people he had worked closely with, one of which was Lt. General [Timothy J.] Maude, were killed at the Pentagon that day."

Wilson had worked with Maude on many issues related to making certain veterans were treated right after they left military service.

"No matter where he worked, he was always about family and soldiers and soldiers' families," Linnea Wilson said. "He always wanted them all to have the best of the best."

That included his own daughter. Sadly, though, they never got to attend that Daytona 500 together.

"We tried to plan it all the time," Linnea said. "Not too long before he died, he said, 'I'm not going to be too busy once they start the season up again. Let's plan to go to the Daytona 500 together.' That was going to be at the start of this season [in February] -- and he passed away on Jan. 11."

She said she is thrilled now that her father will get to "experience" a race by having his photo on Newman's car.

Newman's "hometown boy"

Ryan Jackson, now 31, was 24 years old when two exploding mortal shells littered his body with shrapnel in May 2005 while he was on patrol in Iraq. He survived, but some of the shrapnel remains in his body today.

Jackson said he was stunned when he learned his was one of the photos selected to be placed on Newman's car.

"Oh my God. When I got that e-mail, I about jumped through the ceiling. With over 25 million vets out there, to be one of 500 selected to be on this car, I just couldn't believe it," Jackson said.

He has a vested interest. He is a big fan of Newman and Tony Stewart, who drive for Stewart-Haas Racing.

"I grew up in the little town of Argos, Ind., 30 miles south of South Bend," Jackson said. "So Ryan Newman is my hometown boy. And I've always loved Tony Stewart. I just love his attitude and how he goes out there and drives and doesn't put up with any crap. So when they told me my picture was going to be on this car, I was like, 'This is a dream come true.'

Jackson seems to have an amazingly upbeat outlook on life, despite circumstances that might bring many others down. He said his life changed the day he was wounded in Iraq.

Sgt. Ryan Jackson

"I actually suffered some pretty serious injuries," he said. "I got hit by two mortars one day. I took on a lot of shrapnel in my body. I still have some of it in there. I had one piece that went in my neck and missed my carotid artery by a millimeter. One of the doctors said, 'It's in there and we're not going to take it out. It's a miracle you're still alive.' ... I definitely owe one to the Big Man Upstairs, or I wouldn't be here right now."

After returning to the United States following the injuries, he reenlisted in the Army.

"When I came back I reenlisted and went to military police officer's school and did some K-9 training as a dog handler," he said. "Then they sent me over to South Korea for a year."

He was medically discharged in February 2008 and worked most of the rest of that year for a satellite television company, but lost his job in December of that year and has been unemployed ever since.

"I don't own nothin'. I don't own a vehicle. I don't own a place to live. All I own is a bagful of clothes. If it wasn't for my fiancé, I'd be out on the streets," he said.

Still, he tries to remain upbeat. He said NASCAR helps him do that -- and this tribute to veterans is icing on his cake.

"This is exciting for me. I've always loved NASCAR because they're all about the military," Jackson said. "When I was at Fort Bragg, they actually presented the colors one year at Charlotte Motor Speedway and I tried to go and do that. They picked guys that didn't know racing -- and I was like, 'Why don't you pick me? I'm a NASCAR fanatic.' I had been to Darlington and Martinsville and Richmond and the old track at Rockingham, which they later shut down.

"I told my parents and everyone else, it's just going to be an honor to be going around the race track on his car. I love Ryan Newman and I love the U.S. Army car. I'll be yelling at him to go, go, go."

Jackson said he appreciates the idea of placing veterans' photos on the U.S. Army car.

"I don't think I've ever known of any other better way to honor vets," he said. "This is a huge, huge honor. Someone said something about me being a hero or something, and I was like, 'No, I was just doing my job.' Yeah, I suffered some life-changing injuries but I wouldn't change it for the world. I wouldn't change anything. I'm proud of what I did; I'm proud of the medals I won; proud of serving with the people I did; and proud to have done what I could to help keep this planet free."

The proud mom

Rhonda Brown nominated the photo of her son, Luther Brown, to be on Newman's car. Luther Brown served 17 months at Alasid Air Force Base during Operation Iraqi Freedom, conducting convoy security as supplies and fuel were transported from the Syrian border to base.

"We are so proud of Luther. We did not find out, in fact, when he went to Iraq that he had volunteered to go. He was not actually sent over with his unit," Rhonda Brown said. "He didn't tell us because he was afraid we would be upset. And we probably would have been, yes. At the same time, he wanted to go over with a bunch of guys who had gotten into the [National] Guard with him. He knew he was going to be sent over sooner or later, and he decided that was the mission he wanted to go on."

Spc. Luther Brown

Luther's vehicle was hit several times by IED devices while in convoys in Iraq. And while he escaped injury, Luther recalled how he and other soldiers once had to give blood immediately to help keep injured Iraqi civilians alive after a mortar attack near the city of Hit.

"A whole bunch of Iraqi civilians had been hit. They brought in probably 20 or 30 wounded to one of the biggest medical centers they had [in the area], and they didn't have enough blood," he said. "So me and my roommate took off -- we barely had any clothes on -- and ran to the medical center about a block away to give our blood. It wasn't something that was all that irregular over there at the base, with all the IED attacks and everything. It was just something we did. It was nothing outside of our jobs."

Luther Brown returned from Iraq in July 2007 and now is working toward getting his Criminal Justice degree at the University of Northern Iowa.

His mother said she cannot wait to see Newman's car zip around PIR with the photos of all the veterans, including one of her son, adorning it.

"We're ecstatic. In fact, we're beyond ecstatic," she said. "And Tony Stewart is my favorite driver and he owns the car, so everything is right.

"I think it's wonderful any time anyone puts forth the effort to pay a tribute to veterans. There never, ever will be anything that we can do to thank veterans enough for the sacrifices they've paid and what they've fought through."

Ryan Jackson said this weekend's tribute with the No. 39 car is a decent start.

"Sometimes you come back and people just forget about you. It's sad," Jackson said. "That's another reason I love NASCAR. The drivers talk about how much they appreciate the military; you've got soldiers presenting the colors before races; you've got the flyovers. ... No other sport does all that. That's why, in my eyes, NASCAR is the best sport out there."

LaNita Herlem added: "I would love to see the Army car in Victory Lane. It would be amazing. I will definitely be watching to see what happens."

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