Peace Dividend

Imagine if TE Lawrence - aka Lawrence of Arabia and the owner of seven Brough Superior vintage-era superbikes in his abbreviated lifetime - had actually conceived, designed and personally built his own radical sporting V-twins, rather than leaving George Brough to do it for him. And had earned the funds and the resources to do so as a direct result of a high-level blunder by British Army command, which saw him and his squad cast adrift in the Arabian Desert, stamped as 'Missing in Action'.....

-  Alan Cathcart

Instead of Lawrence, consider Georgia-born US Marine Corps veteran Tony Audette, 32, who joined up three days after graduating from high school, and instead of Arabia read Afghanistan - otherwise, the rest holds true. Audette served Uncle Sam as a medium and heavy machine gunner for five-and-a-half years from May 2009, latterly in an eight-man squad deployed to some of the most remote and inhospitable regions of Afghanistan, meaning he spent a long time out in the high desert.

Audette was among the Americans left behind in Afghanistan after the Obama administration began pulling US troops out in 2013, and unfortunately, he was part of the squad that became known as the Exiled Eight. "We got lost on our Company's roster," he says diplomatically, "so we spent several weeks on the front lines without any support, and had to fend for ourselves. It was tough."

Those Marines faced hostile conditions including constant sandstorms and dwindling rations, forced to find their own food while facing insurgent fire and other hazards, highlighted by one of the squad losing both legs after stepping on an IED. Audette and his sergeant were the last ones to leave this hell on earth when they were finally evacuated from their area of operations, having befriended many local civilians and learned some valuable lessons about life from them.

Perhaps surprisingly after that experience, seven members of the Exiled Eight volunteered to remain on active service - a privilege denied them under the Obama downsizing, which saw Audette and his comrades all placed on Reserve. "I didn't know what to do," he says. "I'd been a soldier all my adult life, and wasn't prepared for so suddenly being told to sit on the sidelines. So as four of the eight guys that I was with all came from Connecticut, I figured I'd head there for some future companionship."