Shula visits Iraq...he looks the part

Did they think he was nuts? Pretty much.

"They did question why,'' he said of his children and grandkids.

And yet there he was, at age 79, strapped into an Army helmet and a 40-pound bulletproof vest, squeezed into a Blackhawk combat helicopter slicing across the Afghan desert over enemy Taliban outposts.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, by Don Shula.

Sometimes, just when you think a man has done it all and needs no greater adventure in his life than trying to break 90 on a golf course, he goes and surprises you.

Shula is back after having spent eight days in July on a USO tour visiting with thousands of American troops. There was the pelting, blinding sandstorm in Kirkuk, Iraq, the temperatures reaching 115. There was the U.S. base he visited two days after it was hit by a rocket attack. There was the hospital ward in Afghanistan that left a tough old coach fighting as hard as he could to not openly weep at what he was seeing.

``You saw the gunshots, all of it,'' Shula said Tuesday. ``There were a couple of burn victims that all you could do was say prayers for them, and wonder what their life might be like if they survive.'

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/sfl-shula-visit-bn080509,0,2987314.story

I've got to give Don Shula credit, not only for the visit, but for the helmet and jacket, he looks like he could step off the helicopter and order some Colonels to put the Dolphins game on.