The tag line in my PGR Profile and why I put John 15:13 there

My tag line in my profile of the PGR and why I used the verse from John 15:13


Ten years ago on 9/11/2001 A day we’ll all remember, I know I won’t because if it had not been for a bad part on my heater at home I would have been in NYC that day. I am one of the few truck drivers that would volunteer to go there with my company. I had just returned after delivering a load of air duct work to a high school on Manhattan and was supposed to actually relay a load that was to deliver at the same school on that fateful day.

My neighbor had come over to take me to the hardware store to get the part I needed, but when he walked in he told me an air plane had flown into one of the towers at the WTC. We watched the TV for a few minutes and the whole time I’m thinking that this was an attack because you had to really try to hit a building in NYC. It couldn’t be an accident and then we watched the 2nd air craft fly into the second building. I didn’t have to guess who might have done this and I wasn’t wrong.

NYC was closed to traffic so I was given a load and was sent on a short load close by and on the way back I called and talked to my dispatcher about setting up and getting a load of relief supplies to go to ground zero as I had been hearing about other towns doing this.

She told me they had started it and because I am THAT guy that will drive to NYC I was given the load to get there ASAP.

It was collected by Clear Channel Communications who had an office in the WTC and lost a lot of people that day but has several stations here in town. The load was supposed to be delivered to NYC but because my company had reloaded and palllatized the load it was redirected to Stewart AFB in Newburg, NY just north of NYC. I met with the FEMA director of the area there and the base Commander both who couldn't believe that there were truck loads of things just like on my trailer coming to Stewart and down to other drop sites. I was unloaded and sent on my way.

It wasn’t until a week later that I was sent back to NYC and as I drove along the Brooklyn Queens expressway the view I was so used to seeing across the river was not the one I knew. As I looked at the drivers of cars and trucks around me as we looked across the river I saw sadness and hate at what had happened. I was shaken also and I had a few tears drop from my eyes for the destruction and the memories I had from 1972 while stationed at Ft Dix for an MOS school and coming to NYC on weekends and remembering standing at the foot of the WTC as they were still building them and also of delivering there over the years and going up to the observation deck. They are only memories but they hold those views in my minds eye.

My company in thanks for me asking about gathering supplies and volunteering to take the load at no pay bought a new truck for me and I got to decide the design for the truck. I decided on what looked like bullets but in the Red White and Blue of our flag. I also designed a plaque in memory to the men and women of the FDNY, NYPD, EMTS and the Civilian Volunteers that ran in to the World Trade Center but never came out.

I dedicated that truck to those who died trying to rescue so many people they never knew.

The plaque was a star in a red circle and on the points of the star was Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard who guard our borders and protect us from dangers from outside our borders, and in the center around a silver circle is written Police, Fire, EMT and Civilian Volunteers for those who protect us and help us at home inside those borders.


But in the center on the silver background I put a verse from John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

There were also 2 ribbons on both sides of the star one black for those who will never return and one yellow for them to come home to.

Then a church in Topeka started their hate and out of their hate the Patriot Guard Riders arose to stand in honor for our KIA’s and to protect the families from this hate.

I joined this group in either late 2005 or early 2006 I believe I was about #32,186 or somewhere in that area. And when I joined I put in my signature or tag line these simple words: There is no truer love than when a man gives his life so that others may live. Taken from John 15:13

I took the words from John and changed the verse from how John wrote in his letter so it reflected my feelings for those who gave their life freely for others.


I did a lot of postings in the PRG web site but it wasn’t until a news reporter that joined us used my tag line in a story he did on the PGR and John 15:13 started to be used in many posts, news stories, and funerals.


I hope that it was me that brought this verse into the lives of many as it stands so true for those who volunteer their lives so that we may live on.

As many of us in the PGR, when we were in service to our country we were drafted but as time went on and that dirty war, spelled police action in SE Asia was over and the draft ended many men and women kept joining the armed forces and giving freely, their lives when it came to it.

They still, to this day write a check to us with their lives by volunteering their service to America and yes to the world even though we are hated by many we still answer a call for help.

We will continue to give the lives of our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives so that others may live.

Thank you disciple John for your letters about your Lord and Master’s sayings as you learned at his feet and thank you for a verse that has so much meaning if not to me but a nation under God.

George “Rollover” Purdy