Dear Lee Brice,

You don’t know me, but your song, “I Drive Your Truck” could have been written about me.

Since college, I have always tried to hit the open road when I’m upset. I once drove all the way from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan to Chicago in my beat up Buick Regal with my best friend because the guy I liked didn’t like me back. In more recent years, I’ve driven from the suburbs of Detroit to the northern woods of Michigan to a town called Prudenville to see one of my best friends after a fight with my brother, although if my mom is the one pushing my buttons, I drive to Birch Run (about 75 miles north of the Detroit suburbs), stop at Starbucks to use the bathroom and get something to drink, and head back again.

Driving soothes me in a way most other things can’t.

Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that after my brother Michael died, I spent a lot of time on the open road.

Sgt. Michael R. Mandley didn’t die in the war, though it can definitely be said he died because of it. He suffered from PTSD, and in the end, his coping methods got the better of him. He’d always been a sensitive little boy, not to the point where he’d be taunted on the playground or anything, but moreso in a “still waters run deep” sort of way. He wasn’t what you’d call book smart, though once he learned something, it was stuck in his head for life, and in later years, his reading habits trended towards porn and books about the Hells Angels. His sense of direction was laughable, and the fact he served the USMC in logistics was ironic, but as my grandfather once said, “He’s not the smartest guy out there, but there’s just something about him you can’t help but like.”

When Mike returned from his last deployment, that same grandfather bought him a Chevy Silverado. It had a small V-8 engine and a big enough bed to put his Harley into, and that’s all Mike wanted. He decorated it with impossible-to-remove DoD stickers, including tanks and POW/MIA stickers with the requisite USMC sticker, and a few other stickers you’d find on any self-respecting Harley riding, truck driving guy’s vehicle (yes, the silhouette of a naked woman you’re picturing right now would be accurate). He’d drive around town wearing his sleeveless leather vest with the big POW/MIA patch sewn on the back, most of the time wearing a beat to hell straw cowboy hat with an Alabama patch on the front (God knows why) or his red bandana sharing his love of country music with anyone in the vicinity.

He liked it loud.

The truck was way too big for most suburban parking lots, and his bumpers weren’t without a few dents and scratches in them, along with a decent sized dent in a rear panel. But somehow, that damn truck suited him; so much so that he managed to burn a cigarette hole into the drivers seat within a week of owning it.

A year and a half later, Michael died.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSMCgqlc-0] That big, white Chevy Silverado was left where he’d parked it in his apartment complex lot after we unloaded all the gifts he and his fiancee’ Mary had received at their shower held the day before he died. We went in and out of it looking for various documents and parts of his Marine Corps uniform (which he was buried in). We found his cowboy hat ( “… that dirty Braves cap sitting on the dash”), a few brown t-shirts the USMC requires underneath its uniforms ( “… and a Go Army shirt folded in the back), and believe it or not, a few “half empty bottle(s) of Gatorade rollin’ in the floorboard.” There was also a book about the Hells Angels and a copy of the book “Secrets of a Gay Marine Porn Star” written by Rich Merritt that someone thought he’d find interesting (given some of Mike’s interests, none of us so much as batted an eye when we dug it out of the passenger side door pocket).

A month later, the apartment complex called. They had rented another apartment in the building and needed us to move the truck. My mom drove me over and taking a deep breath, I hauled myself into the driver’s seat that had last been occupied by Michael. Tears were already building in my eyes, and I planned to get the heartbreaking task completed as soon as possible. It didn’t happen that way. Instead, once I turned over the engine and let it idle for a few minutes, I reached over and turned on the radio. Trace Adkin’s “Arlington” flooded the cab of that truck and I sat there sobbing (“… same ol’ country station where you left it.”). You see, given the fact that Mike was terrified of cremation and both of my parents have already decided on cremation, we weren’t sure where to bury Michael. And then it occurred to me: Michael would have wanted to be buried with his fellow Marines, soldiers, and naval men (or Squids, depending which side of the fence you’re on) and as we’re lucky enough to live less than an hour from Great Lakes National Cemetery, it became Michael’s last resting place.

I don’t get out there as much as I probably should.

And momma asked me this morning
If I’d been by your grave
But that flag and stone ain’t where I feel you anyway

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck

I’ve cussed, I’ve prayed, I’ve said goodbye
Shook my fist and asked God why
These days when I’m missing you this much

I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes, brother sometimes

I drive your truck
I drive your truck
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind
I drive your truck

Thank you and your song writers for a song so poignant, yet one so unbelievably real and relate-able. I may not have back country roads to burn, nor do I have the guts to tear up a field, but I can assure you, each time I drive that big ol’ truck of my brother’s, I have tears running down my face.

Many thanks,

Monique