CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Yes, I do vote. So I guess that entitles me to have an opinion. Especially about things like war.
I’m not your typical celebrity who decides on a cause without thinking about it real carefully. I watch CNN and all the political programs. I’ve listened to what people have had to say. I’ve always been supportive of the troops. But it took me a while to decide how I felt about the war.
We’ve been at war in Iraq for five years, and people just don’t see that. People are too busy with their nine-to-five jobs and their nine-to-five lives to realize that there are kids fighting and dying in Iraq. For the most part, the only reason they are there is because they come from poor places and the only way they can make money is to go to war.
It’s become a political war. I’m not a political person, but it’s not that difficult to read between the lines. I’m against the war. But I’m one hundred percent in support of the troops. I’ve said so on a lot of my victory T-shirts. And I’d like to think I’ve shown it with my actions.
When the Marines snubbed Jenna, it never got in the way of my supporting the military. I knew that it wasn’t the troops’ doing. Jenna and I have done other things with the troops since that happened, and the response has been fantastic. Sure, 9/11 was the catalyst that got me to support the troops. But I guess we all need something to get us involved. I’ve given a lot of support to the military since 9/11—I’ve visited troops on their bases, gone to see people in hospitals. Any time the USO called, I was there.
The USO called midway through 2007 and wanted to know if I wanted to go to Iraq. Going to Iraq for a week to say hi to all these kids who had left their families to go fight for their country, sign some autographs, and take some pictures simply to let them know that people were in their corner was the least I could do.
I flew out of Los Angeles on July 28, 2007. We flew into Washington, D.C., and I was taken to Bethesda Hospital and Walter Reed Army Hospital, where I got an up-close look at the price these kids were paying for fighting in Iraq.
I saw guys who had had their arms and legs blown off. There were guys who had suffered permanent brain damage from shrapnel from exploding IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Some guys couldn’t even speak. Seeing the support their parents were giving them was heartwarming, but seeing these kids who had a body part missing or who were all shrapnel-scarred was really heart-wrenching.
Bethesda was a reality check for me. I was like,Holy shit! This is what’s really going on in Iraq right now . What I saw really hurt me badly.
Then I was taken to Walter Reed, where a lot of the wounded were going through therapy. There was this one guy who had been stabbed in the head. The blade had barely missed his frontal lobe. He was okay and he was waiting to go through therapy so that he could go back and fight with his guys again. He wanted to go back to war, and the army was willing to let him. He said, “I have fifteen guys who are my brothers, and I want to go back there and help them.” I was thinking,Wow! I’m going to Iraq tomorrow and this is what I’m going to see?
A couple of my friends, Justin McCulley and Kenny Knoll, came with me. We flew into Kuwait and went to a camp to meet with the guys. I posed for pictures and just talked to them, and they were real stoked.
We flew to four other camps to visit the troops, then they put us on a DC-130 and flew us into Baghdad. I was wearing a flak jacket and a helmet. Suddenly it really seemed like a war zone. All I could think was,Are we going to get shot at?
The last night of the tour we flew into Camp Victory and there was some incoming fire. Maybe a half-dozen rounds, but they were a long ways away. Being there and seeing the smiles on the guys’ faces really touched me. Then we went to a place called Tajif. They had lost a lot of soldiers in the past year and their morale was really down. I walked in, the guys noticed me, and they seemed kind of bummed. Justin and I talked to them for about an hour, and by the time we left they had smiles on their faces.
I learned a lot from that trip. And the main thing is that getting in the Octagon and fighting isn’t shit compared to what those guys do out there. Our soldiers are walking around with M16s, living in a war zone whether they’re eating, sleeping, or taking a shit. These guys are on the front line, and seeing them at war was something that I had never experienced before. It made a real impact on me.
What I do is a sport, a competition, and we abide by a certain set of rules. What they do is reality. Seeing our soldiers at war really scared the shit out of me.
Going to Iraq was the first time in the year that Jenna and I had been together that we had been apart for any length of time. And I missed her. While I was gone, Jenna had decided to have a breast reduction and when I got off the plane and saw her, I was pleasantly surprised.
I had a brand-new woman to play with.
The idea of giving back did not end with the troops. Not long after I returned from Iraq, I went to Arizona to do my second annual blood drive for United Blood Services. I was there to sign autographs and encourage people to donate blood. This year we collected more than four hundred pints of blood, twice what we did the previous year.
The idea of helping and giving back has always been with me. When I first started fighting I would sometimes give a percentage of my winnings to charity. Sadly that hasn’t happened much lately because, well, I’ve got bills to pay. But I have a history of donating my time for a good cause.
In 2000, I began a series of Ultimate Training Center seminars. People would donate toys or money and were offered the chance to come and train with me. I still try to do those every once in a while.
I was involved in the Miracle on First Street, an annual toy giveaway sponsored by the Hollenbeck Youth Center in Los Angeles. I remember I was driving down the street with the boxer Fernando Vargas and I saw all these kids and parents standing in a long line. I turned to Fernando and said, “You want to hear something funny? I remember when I was young, my family and I would be standing in lines like these.” I was really touched by the scene. Fernando and I pulled up and started handing out toys. Fernando left after a couple of hours, but I stayed until every last kid was taken care of.
But while I like to give back, occasionally the best intentions are messed up. After I fought Ken Shamrock the first time, I decided to start up a Tito Ortiz Foundation to help out underprivileged and inner-city kids. I went to this company called Foundation Makers to license the charity. We were going to create a website, and they were talking about a charity golf tournament. Basically they promised me the world. So I wrote them a check for ten grand, which, in those days, was a lot of money for me. Then all of a sudden I started hearing that they couldn’t get this and that, that the original ten grand was for the license and paperwork, and that now they needed more money from me. When I refused to give them more money they said I had signed a contract and they were going to sue me. So I ended up getting burned.
But things like that have not stopped me from doing charity events when I can. Because it’s always nice to look in the mirror at the end of the day and see that you helped somebody’s life…even if only a little bit.