Inside SEAL Team Six(10)

Most weeks he was away from home four out of five nights, traveling for work. But because this was a Friday, my dad returned for the weekend at around eight.

When he walked in the front door, I was still wearing the same tank top that I’d had on all day. It was ripped and spotted with dried blood. My bottom lip was badly swollen and I had big black-and-blue bruises covering my ribs, arms, and shoulders.

He asked, “What happened? You have an accident on your bike?”

“No, Dad. I got caught riding on the road.”

“You were riding on the road?”

“Yes,” I answered. “But look what the cops did to me. I was unconscious by the time the cops hauled me to jail.”

I couldn’t tell if Dad was angrier at me or the cops. He wanted to know the name of the arresting officer.

“Officer Phil Smith,” I told him. “Of the Salem, New Hampshire, police department.”

Seconds later he was on the phone saying, “This is Arthur Mann. You arrested my son this afternoon for riding on the road, but you had no right to beat him up the way you did.”

I watched the expression on his face change from outrage at them to anger at me as he listened to Officer Smith describe chasing me through four towns and two states, the cars that had been run off the road, and the scene in the Dairy Queen parking lot. I heard the officer explain, “We would have shot your son, but he looked too young.”

My father’s face was red when he turned to me and said, “You’re never riding that motorcycle again as long as you live in this house! You understand me?”

I nodded and said, “Yes, Dad.” But I was thinking, Where am I going to live?

I mean, I had to keep riding and racing motorcycles.

I stashed my Kawasaki in the basement and worked on it at night. For a couple of weeks, I obeyed my dad, but I knew it was just a matter of time.

One Saturday afternoon a couple weeks later, my dad asked me if I would go pick up my brother at his friend’s house.

“On my bike?” I asked, knowing that where we lived, kids were allowed to ride on the back-country dirt roads without a license.

He said, “Okay. I’ll make an exception this time.”

Excited, I passed through the kitchen where my mom and my sister Wendy were washing dishes.

Minutes later I was screaming down a dirt road, enjoying the wind in my face and the smell and the feel of my Kawasaki. I knew that I’d be passing the house of my girlfriend, Jody, and I wanted to impress her. To let her know that I was back.

She lived on a dirt road by a lake. The lake was on my right; her house was on my left. I did a second-to-third-gear wheelie as I swerved around the corner.

It just so happened that a friend of mine was on his bike speeding in my direction. He was in the process of passing a car around that same corner, and we smashed into each other head-on.

My girlfriend, Jody, was looking out her bedroom window, and she heard a terrible crash and saw both bikes fly in the air. She said they rose as high as the telephone lines.

I hit the ground and broke all the ribs on my right side so severely that bone fragments stuck into my liver. I also broke my arm and several bones in my face and suffered a concussion. I was in a coma for almost a week.

The doctors told my parents that I wasn’t going to survive.

I woke up hovering near the ceiling of a hospital hallway. Below, I saw my dad in his suit and tie holding my mother, who was crying. They were watching a gurney being wheeled past by several orderlies. A bloody sheet covered a body.

Months later, I realized that I had had a near-death experience.

I was looking at myself.



It look me months to recover from my injuries, and between visits from my hoodlum friends, I made a decision to dedicate my life to something, and I chose the only thing that really excited me at the time: motocross racing.

It might seem like a strange decision given the fact that I had almost killed myself on a motorcycle, but it gave my life some purpose and direction. Besides, in motocross, all riders travel in the same direction, so the chances of a head-on are very slim. At least, that’s the reasoning I gave my parents.

When they asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said a weight set. They got one for me, and I started working out. Every night at around eleven, I’d come home after working or hanging out with my buddies, put on my headphones, crank up Black Sabbath on my stereo, and lift weights—curls, bench presses, overhead presses—then do rowing, push-ups, and sit-ups. I’d try to do a continuous set of a particular exercise to each individual song. “Iron Man” and “Paranoid” were my favorites.

Often I’d keep going until two or three in the morning, then I’d catch a couple hours sleep before heading off to school.