A Classic Ford Mustang Salute to a Soldier

Soldier gets powerful welcome home  

Fayetteville Observer by Michael Futch

   SPRING LAKE — Army Capt. John Pelikan had no idea that his 1968 Ford Mustang would be sitting in the backyard Saturday, restored to its open-highway glory in a gesture of chrome-plated love.   Well, maybe he knew something was up.   Pelikan had returned home five days earlier than expected from a 15-month deployment in Afghanistan. His family told him that the old Mustang — which his mother, Tamera, called “the other woman in his life” — was in the shop having the radiator fixed.

Before he deployed, Pelikan had asked his father to get the car repaired.   But Pelikan’s a smart fellow. After enlisting in the service in 1994, he went on to graduate from West Point in 2001.  So, he admits he had wondered since his return home, “‘What else are they doing?’ They told me they were making it reliable,” he said, “and getting it running again.”   Instead, family and friends (and the custom builders at an automobile restoration shop) pooled their money to have the Mustang “pimped out,” with classy restraint.  

Pelikan, who inherited the car from family after graduating from high school in Twentynine Palms, Calif., saw the restored Ford on Saturday morning for the first time.   Fifteen relatives, including kin from California, New York and Colorado, gathered to catch his reaction at his grandparents’ home in the Stone Cross subdivision of Anderson Creek, in Harnett County.   Pelikan had driven with his wife, Rondi, and daughter, Karis, from their home about two miles away. They took her car, a Honda Pilot.  

As he walked onto the back porch of David and Gayle Keyte’s house, Pelikan’s hazel eyes locked on the “muscle car.” The black of that Ford Mustang body shine in the morning sunlight like a pair of polished church shoes. It sat waiting for his approval, parked under the limbs of a tall pine before a banner that read, “Welcome Home John/ We Love You/ From Your Family and Friends.”   His mother, his father, Philip, and the rest of the family stood behind it.   “You gotta be kidding me,” he said, approaching the vehicle. “It’s awesome.”   “Holy cow,” he added, with a huge grin on his face as he opened the driver’s door and inspected the remodeled interior.   “Open that hood,” his mother said.   “Nice.”   “You gotta start it,” she said.   Again, this mission-tested Army captain followed Mom’s orders.

After climbing behind the wheel, he started that baby up.   “Very nice.”   Since returning from his deployment, the 32-year-old had been talking about what he wanted to do with the car. He had set aside some money and intended to redo the interior. Under his ownership, the car never had a functioning heater and it didn’t have air conditioning.   Capt. Pelikan has driven the Mustang cross-country on four occasions. The car has been with him throughout his military career. “Every little bit of work I’ve done on it — every improvement — sort of matches some major step in my life. It’s connected with my life,” he said.   The car probably has a good 200,000 miles on it, but that was hard to tell after the custom restoration by Tommy Harper and the crew at T&R Custom Street Rods.  

 Harper and his son Josh were there Saturday morning with the Pelikan clan, showing off the efforts of their work.   “It wasn’t in bad shape,” Harper said. “Just the engine compartment was real bad. It runs like a brand new one.”   The work   Over a six-week period, Harper pulled the engine and transmission out to detail and paint the inside engine compartment. Air conditioning and heating were installed, and the interior was completely redone. Part of the rear had been repainted, too.   The bill totaled more than $20,000. For this soldier’s homecoming, 42 people donated a total of $16,000. Harper put $4,000 of his own money in it, too.   “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I take a lot of pride in my work,” he said. “We appreciate what John does for us. He’s doing a lot more for us than what we’ve done for him.”  

It didn’t take long before John took her out for a ride. With Rondi sitting on his right, Pelikan steered that shiny black Mustang to Anderson Creek and back. Yes, he got that car up to about 65 mph or so to see if she still vibrated. She didn’t.   “This is incredible,” he said. “How could you not like this?”