Well, Natasha has been bugging me to write another 'guest' post on her blog. Since this Super Bowl is boring me to tears, I reckon I can crank something out right about now.
I'll continue with the sports theme, but transition to something that most Americans don't have a whole lot of visibility on: soccer. I know, most of you are probably thinking 'soccer?! why the heck would I waste my time with that boring, communist sport?!'. I once felt the same way, and the American media (although improving drastically) doesn't do much to promote the sport outside of World Cup coverage when the U.S. is still in the tournament. However, during my years in service, Uncle Sam sent me to a whole lot of places that didn't have English programming on television. The only thing I could watch and understand was, you guessed it, soccer. At first I was indifferent to various leagues and teams that were playing on the TV and was just happy to have something to watch to pass the boredom in my hotel room/hut/shack. That all changed for me when I was sent to Kenya to facilitate a conference between the U.S. and some allies about land warfare in Africa.
I was staying at a hotel on the Indian Ocean (awesome, I know) in Mombasa, Kenya in March 2009. After eating dinner in the open air restaurant whilst fending off monkeys, I made my way to the bar for a nightcap. When I got there, the television screen behind the bar was showing a Barclays (English) Premier League clash between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford (Man U's home ground). As I stated before, I was indifferent to any team at this point, but had grown interested in, if not fond of, the game in general. A few minutes after I sat down, one of the Kenyan Army soldiers that I had been working with walked in and sat next to me at the bar. He noticed my attention on the game and asked me who I was rooting for. When I replied that I didn't care who won, he looked almost offended and started shaking his head and saying 'no no no no no no' like only an East African can. He looked up at the bartender and proceeded to order two Tusker beers. He placed one of the beers in front of me and looked at me, without taking his hand off the bottle, and said 'If I give you this beer, will you cheer for Liverpool?'. I nodded my assent and unwittingly set myself on a journey that would change my perspective on the sporting world forever.
Four Liverpool goals later, I was thoroughly inebriated and as hoarse as an auctioneer at a rock concert while staggering back to my room to get a few hours of sleep. When I woke up the next day and reflected on the night before, I couldn't get over the enthusiasm shown by the locals towards a team on another continent more than 7,000 miles away. Professional soccer is to them what small town high school football is to us - unifying, emotional, and deserving of every bit of support and encouragement we can muster. If you were to take the Americans that are die hard football, basketball, baseball, and hockey fans and focus all of the energy on one sport (the sport for most of the world), you'd get about half way up the wall of importance in regards to how much of it Europeans, Asians, Africans, and South Americans place on soccer. This absolutely and perpetually intrigued me. I haven't looked back since.
Later on that day I started researching the club, its players, and its history. It blew my mind that some of these teams have been around since the 1800s, and Liverpool has been one of the most successful in England and Europe. The club has won the league 18 times and the hoisted the European cup 5 times, more than any other club from the United Kingdom. In 2005, they came from 3 goals down at halftime to win the Champions League in Istanbul, Turkey. This club has more history and drama than any of the other teams I support combined.
During my research of the club, I heard mention of the 'Hillsborough Disaster'. Tragically, on April 15th, 1989, 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield during an FA cup match with Nottingham Forest. Due to mistakes made by stadium officials and police, too few gates were opened to LFC fans and walkways that should have been closed remained open. This resulted in rapid overcrowding, and eventually led to people being crushed against walls and fences. Several others, many of them children, were killed during the ensuing panicked stampede towards the exits.
As if the loss of life wasn't enough, the police and local members of parliament (think state representatives) tried to shift the blame for their ineptitude onto the Liverpool supporters, saying they were drunkenly rioting, picking the pockets of the dead, and urinating (!) on law enforcement and medical personnel after the crush. Nothing could be further from the truth. In actuality, Liverpool supporters acted to assist emergency response personnel by ripping signs off of walls and fences to use as makeshift litters in order to carry the dead and wounded to areas where they could be treated or cared for.
The English newspaper, The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch, supported the story of the police and local MPs (members of parliament), denouncing Liverpool supporters as savages and murderers. After seeing this headline, nearly all Liverpudlians boycotted the sale of The Sun. Family members of those killed at the match began to appeal to their local and national government to investigate the true cause of the incident, but their requests fell upon deaf ears for many years. It wasn't until 23 years later, in 2012, that an inquest determined that police and local MPs lied about the actions of the fans and law enforcement officials that day. The full investigation is still pending, but several officers have admitted to lying in official statements and have told investigators that they were coerced by their superiors to lie in order to save face for their department.
In the wake of the disaster, an organization called the Hillsborough Family Support Group was created to assist families in coping with the reality of the tragedy. Steven Gerrard, a native Liverpudlian, captain of Liverpool and England, lost his cousin that day. Last week he publicly donated £96,000 to the Hillsborough Family Support Group in a show of solidarity and homage to the dead.
When I read about Stevie's contribution, I started thinking about what I could do to help. You see, up until November of 2013, my entire adult life was spent facilitating destruction. Destruction of people, destruction of property, destruction of will. All of this was done in service to my county and in the name of the Global War on Terrorism and I don't regret one second of it, but now I am ready to focus my efforts on helping and creating. I've given my 20's to the people of the United States. My 30's are going to me, my family, and anyone else I might be able to help. Nowadays, whether its building furniture, learning how to cook new things, working in my garden, or actually going to work as a Production Supervisor for a manufacturing company, everything I do is about creating; not destroying. I'm happier for it, and its about damn time.
This is my effort to do something to give back to the organization that helped me get through deployments by giving me something to focus on and get excited about (other than work). For me, match day wasn't just a game. It wasn't just sports. It was sanity. It was real life. It was a way to escape the monotony, boredom, and ferocity of a war. Liverpool Soccer kept me alive when my friends were dying. Kept me from going over the edge. Kept me from losing all passion for life and becoming numb. Kept me tethered to reality in a way that my family and friends couldn't because they just didn't understand what it was like.
Now its my turn to help.
I have decided to wage a fundraising campaign to help the Hillsborough Family Support Group. Obviously, I won't be able to come close to matching Captain Fantastic's financial contribution, but I can do something. I have designed a Texas Liverpool Supporters tee shirt through Teespring.com. Teespring is a website that allows an individual to design and market custom apparel without worrying about the manufacturing or logistics of it. You tell them how many you want to sell, and if you reach your target, they print all of the shirts at a set price, taking their share, and giving the remainder of the profits to you or a charitable organization that you designate. If I can get 100 people to commit to buying my shirt at just $15, I can give $500 to the Hillsborough Family Support Group. I know that is not a lot, but it is something. And if there is one thing that I have learned in my 30 years on this earth, its that something is always better than nothing.
You can help support my campaign at http://www.teespring.com/texasreds
-Matt
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