Posted on 05/16/2013 12:23:07 AM PDT by raccoonradio
The father of a slain Bay State Medal of Honor recipient was stunned and proud to learn that his simple words about honoring the memory of his Afghan war hero son were the inspiration behind Lee Brice’s No. 1 country song “I Drive Your Truck.”
“I’m floored. Totally, totally, totally floored,” said Gold Star father Paul Monti, who had heard the country hit before, but didn’t know until just two weeks ago it was about his son, Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared C. Monti. Before then, Paul Monti said, he had found the song so hauntingly evocative of his son’s death that he couldn’t bear to listen to it.
Jared Monti was killed in Afghanistan in 2006, while trying repeatedly to rescue a wounded buddy under heavy enemy fire. President Obama awarded the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School graduate the Medal of Honor posthumously in 2009.
The song lyric came from the elder Monti’s account of his son’s story in a National Public Radio interview on Memorial Day 2011. A reporter asked how he keeps Jared’s memory alive.
“I drive his truck,” Monti said.
“The words tugged at my heart,” said Nashville songwriter Connie Harrington, who jotted down the phrase in her car.
She and co-writers Jessi Alexander and Jimmy Yeary penned “I Drive Your Truck” about a young man who clings to his brother’s truck after he is killed overseas: “People got their ways of coping/Oh, and I’ve got mine/I drive your truck/I roll every window down/And I burn up/Every back road in this town.”
As “I Drive Your Truck” climbed the charts this year, Harrington began searching for the man she heard that day on the radio. She finally reached Paul Monti on April 28, with a phone call from Nashville.
“Connie could barely speak, she had too many tears,” Monti said. “It was extremely emotional for all of us.”
The truck described in the song is hauntingly similar to Jared’s unkempt old Dodge pickup.
The ashtrays are filled with change; both have cans of Skoal and half-empty sports drink bottles rolling around the floor.
“I refuse to clean the truck,” Paul Monti said. “I don’t want to wipe Jared’s DNA out of it. Everything he left there is still there.”
Brice told the Herald by phone yesterday: “We believe God is in that song, trying to tell us he’s here.” He had just performed “I Drive Your Truck” for the president and other dignitaries in Washington, D.C.
“Jared did more than just save a life that day,” Brice said. “He’s saving lives today.” Monti still finds the song too painful. But he insists “I Drive Your Truck” is “much bigger” than any one family.
“This song is for all those Gold Star parents out there who drive their son’s or daughter’s car, or hang on to their boots, or CDs or whatever else, to keep their memory alive. It’s about the sacrifices of all the Gold Star families out there.”
The Herald’s site also has a short interview with the war hero’s dad.
Is there a Bay State Medal of Honor? Or did the reporter mean that he was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the Bay State?
I heard this story on NPR when I was coming home from work & I cried like a baby as I listened.
I think that he meant a Medal of Honor (Cong.) recipient who happened to hail from the Bay State, Massachusetts. Saying “from the Bay State” or “from Massachusetts” might have added words, etc. to an article that only has a certain amount of
space...
While my dad was dying of leukemia my selfish brother decided the truck was his and my mom allowed him to take it. This has caused major problems in my family because my dad wanted his prized possession to go to my son. He made that decision two years ago and it was the only specific request he ever made about his stuff. It REALLY made my son feel special. I know my son and I have to let it go. My dad's truck is gone, but dang it hurts!
Related activity? Over three months ago my other son told me about a car that his friend was selling. A 1969 Mustang convertible. I have always wanted one and I passed up an opportunity to buy one several years ago. I regretted that decision ever since. Many people expressed interest in buying the car and I was afraid I wouldn't get it or that the seller would raise the price beyond what I could afford. The seller kept telling me he needed to fix a few things before he could sell it and it would be another week or two. Over and over again it would be another week or two. Well I got the car two days ago! My mom came over to see it and the first words out of her mouth were “it's the same color as your dad's truck”. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I had seen the car several times and never realized it is the same color as my day's truck until she said that.
I know my dad is looking out for me and I know he had a hand in make the car deal happen. My dad was in the Air Force and I purchased the car from a guy in the Air Force! I miss my dad and wish I could drive his truck, but I will go drive ‘our’ car instead.
Ps, it is not the fact that my son won't get my dad's truck that is painful. The pain comes from my brother taking over the family as if he was going to step into my dad's shoes, even before my dad died. My brother is not capable of filling my dad's shoes. Heck, he is not worthy to lick the dog poop off the bottom of my dad's shoes. Now he gets to drive my dad's truck knowing his father wanted it to go to someone else. THAT my brother can't change!
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