Determined to make a difference to lives

This war veteran has three world records to his name and has toured the world on a Harley Davidson and uses his initiatives to raise funds for charity. His tales inspire young and old.

“In life, we all make decisions that greatly impact the rest of our lives. Our decisions follow us,” Dave’s started his story last Wednesday night.
“My life was greatly shaped by a decision I made at the age of 12. I decided that I want to be a marine.” In 1969, an 18-year old Dave arrived in Vietnam as part of the United Sates’ marines.

He returned to the US in 1971 before travelling to Israel, where he learnt to speak Hebrew while living in a kibbutz. Dave became involved in the military and was part of the Israeli parachute brigade. By the time he left Israel, Dave had acquired the rank of sergeant in their military.
“I left Israel with 350 dollars in my pocket. That was it. I travelled to Rhodesia and served there, but when the country gained independence in 1980, it became clear to the whites in the military that they would have to go elsewhere,” Dave remembered.

“This was when I joined the South African military. We were fighting in the border war (a war that lasted from 1966 to 1989).”
He recalls those days with great excitement: “We caused havoc, I tell you! I had the honour of serving under the legendary Col Jan Breytenbach.
We had to prevent Swapo from planting landmines.”
It was during this term of service that Dave’s life was irrevocably changed. “We were executing Operation Protea in August, 1981. “One afternoon, at around 15:30, I had this bad feeling that something was going to happen.” Dave remembers broaching this with another member of his unit.

“Something’s coming up, I can feel it,” he said before a loud popping sound signalled that he was right. The military vehicle that Dave was travelling in drove over a landmine, which exploded and set the vehicle on fire.
“The sensation I recall is that of burning alive.” Dave elaborated. “I felt the oxygen in my body being pulled out of me.
It felt like my insides were being extracted from my body and I had the realisation that I didn’t particularly want to stay in the vehicle my body was trapped in.”

His prayers were answered when someone pulled him out of the burning vehicle. “I later found out that it was Breytenbach who had saved my life.
“He waited with me until medical assistance arrived. He decided to save my life, although he had received orders from higher up telling him to leave me there
to die.”

Dave woke up to a shocking reality. When he came to, his face was cut open and his ankle, tibia and fibia were crushed. The doctor judged the situation by announcing to Dave that his days as a soldier were over. Dave took to this challenge: “Doctor, we’ll see about that.” This was the start of his remarkable journey.

Dave recovered in 1 Mil hospital for more than nine months. He underwent four amputations and more than 20 operations. “My right leg was amputated above my knee and my left leg below the knee. I was covered in burns and on top of that, the explosion landed me colour-blind.”
He made the decision that this would not get him down and focused on his intense rehabilitation programme.

“I could finally get out of the hospital on a Friday in 1982. I put on my uniform, loaded my 9-mil and walked back to the South African Defence Force’s paratroopers section, where work commenced that Monday.” He trained troops in Pietermaritzburg and returned to Angola where he served South Africa’s military by offering machine gun training and serviced weapons. He also assisted with the handling of undetonated weapons.
In December of 1982, Dave returned to America. “This was where I reunited with my 1978 Harley Wide Glide 1200 for the first time since losing my limbs. I crank-started the motorbike and did a few figure-eights before I hit the freeway. At that moment, I knew what God’s plan was for the rest of my life.” He had seen what the suffering of injuries similar to his had done to people and decided to spend the rest of his life helping disabled people come to terms with their circumstances and make the best of their lives. “The best way to do this, is to show people that any individual can do anything, whether disabled or not.”

He proved this by doing what nobody else has ever done before: driving around the world on his Harley Davidson. He did this on his own without support vehicles and established a Guinness World Record. Dave continued to travel the globe and collaborated with a charity called Cheshire Homes that was started by former RAF pilot, Leonard Cheshire, who served during the second World War. Cheshire Homes offer assistance to people with disabilities in various ways.
His travels continued to inspired many. Armed with only his Harley Sportster, Dave travelled across Russia and Siberia in the winter, where he remembers Christmas 1996 being one of the coldest says of his life, with a temperature of -27°C. Dave then conquered the Australian continent on another Sportster. His Russian and Australian rides earned two more places in the Guinness Book of World Records.

His adventures led him to South Africa in 2014. He came back to South Africa where his story started with a twofold purpose. “I want to raise awareness for Cheshire Homes and the QuadPara Association of South Africa, an association dedicated to developing the full potential of quadriplegics and paraplegics. I also want to gather money for wheelchairs. Many disabled people are in dire need of wheelchairs, but cannot buy them.” After touring South Africa on his Harley in 2014, Dave and his team, the Rough Riders, returned for more in 2015.

Their trip started out at Kimberley’s Ann Harding Cheshire Home on April 15. The team’s travels took them across 6 000kms of our beautiful country. On Wednesday, April 29, Dave travelled from Piet Retief to Mbombela and confirmed that 54 wheelchairs had already been collected from across South Africa. They departed from Mbombela on April 30 and their journey drew to a close on May 2 in Soweto.
Dave’s story has inspired thousands across the world. The guests at Mbombela’s Harley Davidson dealership were no exception. “I hope that this will fix the attention on the disabled and their needs. We also want to honour the ex-servicemen of this country. I want people to remember that life is a privilege, not a right. And that anything is possible for anyone – disabled or not.”