In Austin, Texas, Motorcycle Missions is giving vets and first responders new skills and a new lease on life.
Some have attended to accidents with fatalities too horrific to discuss. Others have witnessed people being beaten, tortured and stabbed. Still others have had to puke into the nearest trash can when the shrapnel inside them got too painful to bear.
All the men taking part in a recent motorcycle build in Austin, Texas, have survived experiences more harrowing than imaginable. And they’ve struggled, each day since, to put those experiences behind them. They do it so they can move on — earn a living, raise a child, find hope in a world that seems relentlessly hopeless.
The good news is, the determined souls taking part in this night’s Motorcycle Missions event are struggling far less than they were just two months ago. That’s because the program has equipped them with mechanical know-how that’s already benefiting them beyond the shop’s doors. It’s also introduced them to a band of brothers who know what they’ve been through . . . and are still going through.
“Many of these veterans and first responders experience nights when they hope they won’t wake up,” she says. “So we take goofy pics of everyone doing something stupid during a build. We encourage them to bring their kids along to be a part of a build or ride out.
“If any of that helps to ease someone’s pain — or save their life, even — then it’s definitely been worth all the effort.”
See more at Motorcyclemissions.org