Brad Pennington

In order to accurately describe Brad Penningtion and his life one would have to gather together the rarely celebrated American working-class heroes of Bruce Springsteen and situate the composite firmly inside the clashing drums, screaming guitar, and gutturally dispossessed cry of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”. He was the true Tasty-Freeze chili-dog eating, “hot-rodding”, and Harley Davidson customizing American Son born on the side of town every city has and likes to deposit that which it would rather forget. A lunch-pailling factotum who never missed a day of work in his life, Brad was an artist at heart. He was on his way to art school in the midst of the turmoil that was the 1960s when, like so many other American boys, he was scooped up in a macabre lottery and sent off to fight and in a war he, and they, had no business to have been in. He answered the call out of an obligation to his countrymen in Mars Hill, Indiana – few of whom came back home after taking that long ride into the jungles of Vietnam. He loved America and believed in the good of his country, however, to hear him tell it, he did not fight out of any sense of patriotism – though he was most certainly a patriot of the highest order. He fought, instead, for his friends and brothers in arms. He fought to go back to the home he had been ripped away from because of reasons he could not, and would not ever, understand. He came back from Vietnam having lost many friends and what innocence afforded to any of us; the mental scars from the brutality he was obliged to endure and carry out on orders, and for simple survival, he would carry with him unto his last days. Upon his return, he went to work welding and building transmissions on a factory line and such until the 80s came and Wall Street figured he and his ilk didn’t deserve the kind of living wage they were promised. Decisions and fortunes were made above him to send his kind of job far and away and forever for profit and a good bottom-line at the expense of the working class. But, no matter; or, as he would put it, “Don’t mean nothing”, as was the saying of his platoon which would become a lifelong mantra. He would later lay fiber optics at the Naval Air Warfare Center before stocking the shelves at the Fort Benjamin Harrison commissary and finally retiring, after a long tour of service, from Napa Auto Parts Warehouse where he had many friends. All the while, he raised a family and built a home with his wife, Marcy, who along with him stood Symplegadian guard over their family to the very end. With great pride, he graduated from MMI Motorcycle Institute where he continued his life’s passion of repairing, customizing, and riding Harley Davidsons. He could fix anything. He was indestructible. He was a survivor. He wasn’t just an American: He was America, in action and in real time. He will be missed. Welcome home, soldier.