Posted on 07/29/2007 8:45:47 AM PDT by Clive
The Taliban took Jody Mitic's legs. Then strangers gave him a custom motorbike. Now condo management is taking his parking space
By JOE WARMINGTON
First a foreign enemy took away his legs and now back home someone is trying to take away his wheels.
This is a story about how some people know how to treat our war heroes and how some don't.
Master Cpl. Jody Mitic had his legs blown off in Afghanistan fighting people who are unbending in their ridiculous rules.
And now Mitic is facing the same kind of austere stupidity here.
Flashback to January, just a week before the 30-year-old sniper stepped on a land mine.
"I was already thinking about life back home and I saw this great motorcycle on the cover of Motorcycle MoJo Magazine," Mitic said. "I e-mailed them and said, 'How can I get one of those?' "
And then came that horrible day when he lost both legs below the knee, and many thought he'd die.
When the guys at MoJo heard about this, they decided to build him a custom-made bike -- just like the one on the cover of the magazine.
To honour the sniper they called it the Buell's Eye, and it even has a yellow ribbon painted on it in support of the troops over in Afghanistan. "I'm a big fat biker guy with tattoos and I found myself crying," Cory Wickham told the Sun's Tracy McLaughlin in a story in April.
Barrie Harley-Davidson's Steve Redford and Lorne Duncan, with the help of donations of parts and time from others, customized a beautiful $50,000 Buell motorcycle for the Brampton native -- complete with hand shifters and other custom alterations.
HELPED HIM BACK UP
"Here is this guy who lost his legs for his country and over a week later he still has the inspiration to ride," Redford said at the time. "That was it -- this guy was going to get a new bike."
They all should be awarded the Order of Canada for doing that.
Mitic, who was shocked when they presented it to him, credits the gesture with helping him get back up on his new, artificial, titanium feet and legs.
"Hell, yeah," he says. "Knowing that bike was out there to ride, I knew I had to get back."
They presented it to him in April but he waited until a month ago to actually ride it. "I just wanted to wait until I was strong enough. What a feeling," he said of that first ride.
It was so special he went out and bought his fiancee, Danielle Still, a starter bike and the two have been learning together. "It has changed my life," he says.
But enter the rigid rules of a condo complex to the story. After several weeks of parking these motorcycles in their two rented parking spaces at their rented condo at Yonge and Sheppard, they have been told they have to remove them by 1 p.m. tomorrow or they will be removed for them.
"Please be advised if you don't remove your motorcycles ... we regret to inform you we will have no choice but to tow your motorcycles," reads a letter signed by "senior property manager" of Toronto Condominium Corp. #1362 Sandi Plesa.
Now is this really necessary? If they were snowmobiles, maybe? But a motorbike? Talk about the highs and lows for Mitic in 2007.
Turns out the condo building has grandfathered-in a rule that motorcycles are no longer permitted in the underground parking area. "I didn't realize that," Mitic said. "There are other bikes parked nearby in the same underground."
'MAKE AN EXCEPTION'
But there are exceptions being made for them because they were there before the new clause was put in. Mitic tried to get a meeting to explain that he is in rehab for just another month and then he will be moving back to his base at CFB Petawawa in his quest to get back over to Afghanistan.
"I just want to see if they could make an exception for a few more weeks or at least until I can make some other arrangements," he said.
"The thing I am worried about is if I have to park this expensive bike on the street, it will get stolen for sure."
He said no one has been receptive in talking with him and he was rudely told "rules are rules."
Sounds almost as inflexible as the Taliban.
"I didn't want to be all boo hoo about it," said Mitic. "I just want to come up with a compromise."
Now Mitic is frantically trying to come up with somewhere to put the motorcycles. "They didn't give me much time here," he said. "I just don't understand what they have against motorcycles -- especially since they are fuel efficient and are not as bad with congestion. Mine are not bothering anybody where they have been parked!"
It's sick treatment since Mitic, with the help of the Canadian Armed Forces, pays $3,875 a month for the furnished apartment with one parking space and an additional $80 for a second space.
Plesa has not returned my call but if she does I'll explain my philosophy for war heroes is to not kick their artificial legs out from under them and to do whatever you can to help them enjoy their wheels.
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Wow, that sounds like a country overrun with lawyers!
>sigh<
If it were in the US, that's what I'd suspect, at least. People are in fear of lawsuits left and right.
What an emotional high and low and the apartment management is the LOW; the very bottom of the septic tank.
Condo “rule-er” types are a disgrace. Down here in the Sheeple’s Republic of FloriDUH, such bachelor’s children are called “condo commandos”.
It isn’t a complement.
Holy cow!
Shame on you for what you are doing to Master Cpl. Jody Mitic. If you had any respect for our troops you would allow him park his bikes as long as he needs to.
Signed, Disgusted.
Here's the link to them if anyone else wants to write.
Oh dear Lord.
Holy cow! He should move here. For that kind of dough he could buy a mansion.
My e mail didn’t go through.
I guess I’ll have to call tomorrow.
That is exactly what I was thinking - $3,875 a month for an apartment and one parking space? Man - I know many very high-end condos in some very choice locations with rent less than that...
But to top it off - for that kind of money, you would think he could park his motorcycle in the parking place he is renting. What the heck???
BUMP for Canadian heroes!!
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