The Death Cheater – July 16, 2024 By Rich Wangard If anyone can tell me what God’s plan for me is, please, please let me know! I sure don’t! he lets me live and I have NO CLUE why! I just turned 74 and my daughter Ann gave me the most appropriate birthday card EVER! It said—I am amazingly surprised you are still alive! Even my memory is going to miss some things but I will try to remember some things and reasons I should be DEAD! This all started as a young age! 1--Me and Mom driving in a 1964 Rocket 88 Oldsmobile when I was 12. BAM!—T-boned by another car-I was riding shotgun-hit so hard in the rear passenger door, it just about cut the car in half. If it had hit my door, I am dead. 2—I am 18 now-first time in Nam-Air Force-Jet Engine Mech-E3-Airman First -STUPID AND GREEN! Monsoon hits-very very wet C130A-engine change up on number four engine---You do realize the wing is curved and sheet metal—I am trying to impress my fellow airmen by going up on a wet wing and doing and connecting all the conduits onto the back of the engine—the wing is high off the ground, nothing but cement below! One conduit was a bear to connect. I had to get to the side and that did not work as I slid and slid-nothing to grab, jungle boots have no traction on sheet metal and the wing is wet! Off the wing I go! Only on the say down, unseen, a maintenance stand was up on number 3 engine- as I fell I grabbed the outside rails of that maintenance stand almost tipping it over and another airman was on it. He grabbed me and dragged me over onto the stand. My legs were rubber after that one! 3-We won’t even count all the times I flew in Nam on resupply and all over Nam to fix lanes and do medivacs. Bullets going through planes, never touching me! 3 times in Nam-I was an idiot from age 17-21, Wow, was I lucky! 3-i am out now, going with my girl in a tank Crysler old 300, I think a 1960, all I could afford. Bam-T-boned by a Chevelle that ran a stop sign- hit so hard it just about cut that car in half, left rear door, hit my door-I am dead! Age 22. 4-Wow, I am lucky! Married now-3 babies-need money! I take the job nobody else would. Remember us Nam vets were real popular. I work Wisconsin Prisons as a Recreational Therapist, all alone with 100 inmates a day. Great for a guy with PTSD-No problem. Nobody to tell me what to do or how to do it, thrown to the wolves and I loved it for 16 years. Taking weapons away, busting for dope, guess what? I was theirs anytime they wanted me! I did NOT CARE! what saved me was treating them with human dignity and being consistent and ripping up the institution handbook and making up my own rules—remember I had NO supervision, I was alone. Never a stitch or broken one after 16 years of playing sports and working prisons! Age 22-42 5-It all stopped-Agent Orange hit! End of the line! Disabled after three neurosurgeries-all to the neck, then it hit lower back-20 surgeries in all to keep me walking. Chronic pain, thank God for my wife! Age 42 to present. 6-i will just put all these together, three times beating cancer and at age 56, two stents put in my right coronary artery-99 percent blockage. Doctors discovered that on the table the next day. 7-Everyone know I love Harleys. At age 67 I want a cross country trip so I go see my son in California after Sturgis. I am on the 101, 50 miles out from Paso Robles where my son lives driving a 2001 Heritage-a great bike! POW! At 70 mph my rear tire blows and I go into a death wobble on the busiest highway in the nation! I do NOT go down for whatever reason I DON’T KNOW!!! I am all over the road, with huge traffic behind me, I do not get run over. I come to a halt in the middle of the road, can’t move that 750 pound bike with flat tire-cars stop! Lend help! I call my son, I am totally shaken up! Age 67. 8- I am in my backyard y my firepit. Do you really want to know how stupid I am? I am so so stupid even though I am educated. I want a fire, so go get a gasoline can, wood in the fire pit-OH BOY!! Can you see this is NOT going to end well. Pour gas on wood holding gas can, throw match, Whomp! Fire leaps to the gas can, gas can on fire, I throw gas can away-now backyard on fire-everything ok, let gas can burn off-I think the gas can is empty so I kick it, NOT EMPTY! Gas all over my jeans, now I am on fire! I stop, drop and roll – too late. Second and third degree burns on left lleg from ankle to left knee, that one took 18 months to heal and never ever had I had such pain, no more fire for me. Age 70 Are you impressed yet? I am not done! 9- Remem er how I love Harley, I get my dream bike, a 2020 low rider-107 Milwaukee 8-I have had two weeks, May 2023, riding a rural road I know. Hiuge dust cloud ahead of me, I think, oh a farmer cutting the ditch putting up all kinds of junk-NOPE!! I slow down to 40 mph and enter dust cloud thinking that in 50 feet I’ll be out of it. NOPE! Unseen, no lights, nothing, is a dump truck doing 20 mph. I am on it with no where to go. I lock up the front brake, no time for nothing else. And down I go! Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, Result? Broken neck and broken back and a great doctor who installed 8new screw and two new six inch rods-I was ok after six months but I lost the whole 23 riding season! Age 72 These are just some of the highlights! There have been other close calls but I am out of paper and ink! For I am the Death Cheater and I thank God every single day for I have NO IDEA what his plan for me is. But I do know this! Like every other human being I have done some very bad things in my life ands some very very very good things too and am luck enough to have saved lives-I am no Hero-just a regular stupid idiot.