Connie Harrington Research Paper

Connie Harrington was listening to a public radio program called Here & Now on Memorial Day when she happened to hear a story about a father remembering his son, killed in Afghanistan in 2006. He mentioned that he drove his son 's truck and he went on to describe the truck. Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti was 30 when he was killed in action in 2006. The sergeant was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for trying to rescue a badly wounded comrade in Afghanistan. His patrol had come under a fierce attack, and Jared ran out three times into a wall of bullets and grenades. On his last attempt to save the private, he was killed. "That 's something I have to live with every day. ... [He] never gave up on anything, no matter what it was," Paul says of his son. "Your child

It 's got his DNA all over it. I love driving it because it reminds me of him, though I don 't need the truck to remind me of him. I think about him every hour of every day." Harrington was so moved by the dad who coped with his grief by driving his son’s truck, she scribbled down everything she could remember, all while fighting tears. A few days later, Harrington started turning those thoughts into a song during a co-writing session with Jimmy Yeary and Jessi Alexander. The three penned the poignant “I Drive Your Truck,” which was later sung by Lee Brice. As that song grew in popularity, Paul Monti, the man whose words on the radio inspired it in the first place, got a message on Facebook. It was from a woman whose son was killed in the same battle as Jared. "She sent me a message and told me that she had heard this song and that I had to listen to it. She knew that I drove Jared 's truck, and she drove her son 's truck," Monti says. "I remember not being able to listen to the entire song; I 'd get into it a few bars or so, and just kind of welled up." Harrington couldn 't remember the name of the father whom she 'd heard on the radio but she wanted desperately to find him, to let him know he was