“I was a 16^th round National Football League draft pick in 1968,” said the gentleman seated to my left. “Overall, I was the 417^th selection that year. And even though I had played on a national championship team at Notre Dame, when I got to Pittsburgh nobody knew who I was. After my first season? Nothing. Nobody even recognized me on the street.”

And yet, no matter how far one may be consigned to the shadows, never discount the whims of fate.

“One day, a guy from the front office walked into the locker room and tossed an envelope on the table. He looked at me and said, ‘Hey, you have mail.’”

“My mind was racing. Fan mail, maybe? Finally? I picked up the envelope, and yes, it was fan mail, alright. It was from my uncle. That is, from my Uncle Sam. I was getting drafted into the U.S. Army.”

With that, dear readers, we have a tale to tell: a story of raw guts and total perseverance, of being knocked down and crushed, of being told that your dreams are gone and that your future is bleak at best. And then, it’s a story of fighting back, all the way to the top.

We’re just a few weeks out from a major election. The future of the country hangs in the balance. Where is America headed? What’s the direction of our economy, if not the very value of the U.S. dollar? What of those wars raging in Europe, the Middle East, and brewing in Asia? What will we confront down the road?

Well, as you likely understand, there’s no true “General Theory of Everything.” The future will play out in its own manner, and we can only deal with things based on what we each make of it ourselves. So along these lines, and although we can offer no comprehensive answers, here’s a story that is definitely worth sharing. And it begins with dinner.

Dinner With a Legend

That is, I had dinner the other night with retired Pittsburgh Steeler Rocky Bleier, jersey number 20:

Robert Patrick Bleier, aka Rocky. Courtesy Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Rocky spoke at the Pittsburgh Navy Ball. The event was sponsored by the Western Pennsylvania chapter of the U.S. Navy League to celebrate the U.S. Navy's 249th birthday. Rocky, a former soldier and a wounded Vietnam veteran, was kind enough to attend and participate.

Here’s more of his story: “I read that letter from the draft board. And I asked myself, can they do this? I mean, I was a professional football player. Do they draft people like me?”

Yes, apparently. The U.S. government had Rocky’s number, just not the one on his football uniform.

“My mind was racing. Is there a way out of this?” Rocky reminisced. “I had a couple of weeks before reporting, and our next game was against the Cleveland Browns. So I begged the coaches to put me in and play, and I threw myself against every Cleveland player on the field. Maybe I’d get hurt, and the Army wouldn’t take me.”

But alas, it was not to be. “Those Cleveland guys were wimps. None of them hurt me. At least, not badly enough that I couldn’t pass the Army physical.”

Rocky was off to boot camp, followed by advanced infantry training. Months later, he was in the rice paddies of Vietnam.

“So, now it’s August 1969. I’m in Company C, 4^th Battalion, 31^st Infantry Regiment, 196^th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division. We were out chasing the Viet Cong. But don’t underestimate your opponent because they were chasing us, too. We got ambushed. Early in the fight, I was shot in the left thigh. I was down in the mud, bleeding.”

Then Rocky’s day really went south.

“I was firing an M-79 grenade launcher,” said Rocky, “putting 40-millimeter rounds downrange towards where I thought the bad guys were. All of a sudden, one of their grenades came towards us and bounced off of the shoulder of one of my officers. I jumped to get away, but it exploded towards the bottom of my legs and tore the hell out of me.”

Are you still with me? Keep reading…

“I was a mess,” explained Rocky. “I couldn’t walk. I was bleeding hard. And then I, like many others in that situation, I suppose, tried to make a deal with God: Lord, please keep me alive. Hey, I’ll become a priest, the best priest ever. Or at least, I’ll be a better person. Or whatever You want. Just name Your price.”

Rocky’s buddies began to pull him out of the rice paddy, towards a landing zone where evacuation helicopters were supposed to arrive.

“But we were under fire—bullets everywhere, whizzing all around us. The guys couldn’t bunch up around one person. It was too big of a target. They left. I was down, and alone.”

Then…

“This big black guy came out of nowhere. He grabbed me, picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and humped me to the landing zone, where medics lifted me into a helicopter. From there, I don’t recall much until the hospital in Japan.”

Rocky said, “I never knew who that guy was who saved me. He wasn’t in my unit. I asked around, but nobody could identify him. After all these years, I still don’t know. But because of him, I got out, and I’m still here.”

“We’ll Do the Best We Can.”

“I was a mess,” said Rocky. “Entire chunks were missing from my legs. The doctors operated on me, and operated again, then again. I had lots of physical therapy. And the only thing that kept me from giving up is that other guys in my ward were hurt worse than me.”

Amidst the tragedy and pain came elements of inspiration: “I was wounded in both legs,” said Rocky. “It would have been easy just to roll over and give in. But this other guy was missing both legs and an arm. And with what was left, he was recovering. He used to come by my bed, look at me, and say I looked better today than yesterday.”

Eventually, Rocky summoned the courage to discuss his future with the doctors. Would he be able to play football? Their terse reply was, “We’ll do the best we can, Specialist Bleier. We think you’ll probably be able to walk pretty normally.”

Time to throw in the towel, right? Here was a stark lesson in humility, Rocky’s rapid descent from the heights of pro football to the challenge of recovering the ability just to stand up and move around.

Then, one day, the mailman delivered another fateful item: a postcard from Pittsburgh. “Rock—the team's not doing well. We need you.” It was signed by Art Rooney, the Steelers' owner.

To make a long story short, Rocky worked harder at physical therapy. In due course, he was discharged from the Army and returned to Pittsburgh. In a spirit of great kindness, if not an eye for deep talent, the Steelers placed Rocky on the injured reserve list and carried him for two years while paying his salary.

Almost every day, Rocky exercised, trained hard, and worked out with his teammates as often as possible. By 1971, Rocky was on the special teams squad of the Steelers, sent into games for kickoffs, punts, and field goal attempts. But as for regular playing time, there was not much opportunity: “I was a backup to Franco Harris,” said Rocky. “In fact, I was a backup to the backup, namely Preston Pearson.”

And then again, fate intervened. “In 1974, in one game, Pearson was injured. Then Franco got hurt, too. Next thing I knew, Coach Chuck Noll looked at me and said I was going in.”

That was the chance, and Rocky excelled. “I made it. I gained yards. By the next game, I was in the backfield with Franco. The coaches built plays around us, and we made yardage and scored points. The Pittsburgh Steelers were winning. And then we won our division, the conference, and eventually that first Super Bowl.”

As the 1970s unfolded, the Steelers won three more Super Bowls, and Rocky Bleier made key contributions every season, on the field and off.

Your editor and Rocky Bleier. BWK photo.

“Yes, I have four Super Bowl rings,” said Rocky. And he quickly added, in the very same breath, “And a Bronze Star. And a Purple Heart. And a Combat Infantryman Badge.”

Along the way, Rocky wrote a book about his experiences, entitled Fighting Back. If you’re looking for some inspiration, you might want to check it out.

Don’t Give Up, Ever!

What’s the takeaway? Rocky summed it up: “I’m still paying off on that deal I made with God back in the rice paddy.”

Per Rocky, “Don’t give up. Never. Don’t quit. Never stop.” Especially, don’t give up on yourself. “If you think you can’t, you won’t. If you think you are beaten, you are.”

Many were the days, Rocky explained, when he would arrive home from a practice or a game, feel the pain, and wonder what he was doing and why. “Yeah, I’d think about it, and not in a good way. But then the next day, I’d be right back there.”

“Keep moving,” he said. “Keep working. Always go at it. You don’t ever want to look back and remember what you didn’t do, or didn’t even try to do, and have to ask yourself, ‘What if?’”

And that’s it for today. Thank you for subscribing and reading.