Rocket Man

RECENTLY I WAS walking by the killing field known as Ground Zero when I passed a rather odd sight. A 2003 candy apple red F-350 Lariat pick-up truck was parked on the corner with a large rocket on its flat bed. The rocket was done up in silver, red, white and blue, and was inscribed with the legend, "To Saddam and his boy Osama."

As I slowly circled the unoccupied truck, a middle-aged man stopped and snapped a picture.

"What the hell is this?" his wife asked.

"I have no idea, but I like it," the man said.

On the side of the rocket was a wooden launching pad with the words, "Let Freedom Ring Terrorists Necks." On another was "America C.A.R.E.S." (C.A.R.E.S. being an acronym for Completely Approves Retaliation to Exterminate Scumbag Terrorists.)

There was also an e-mail address on the sign, through which I got in touch with the owner of the truck, Robert Hunt, a 30-something actor/artist who lives upstate near Albany. He was especially thrilled to take the call because of last week's arrest of two Albany Muslims accused of laundering money for a federal agent posing as a terrorist.

"Those two guys [worked] at a mosque that is like three minutes from my house," he says. "The day after they were arrested, I happened to have some work near there and parked the truck. It was a coincidence, but it created quite a stir-up. And I am sure that it pissed them off in the mosque, [but] that's all right with me."

The truck is a labor of love for Hunt, one he's paid quite a price for: The mother of his kids (one of them named Sky Rocket Hunt) recently left him because of it.

"She told me I cared more about the troops of this country than I did about her. She left me for the local garbage man. I told her she traded in a rocket truck for a garbage truck."

She's not the only one confused by Hunt's obsession.

"I have had friends ask me why I don't just take the rocket down. I don't make a quarter from it. But the point is to support our troops and never let people forget 9/11. I do it for that and that alone."

I asked Hunt just how he makes a living.

"I'm an artist, and I make statues that are used as yard art. I sculpt birds, fountains and even an eight-foot giraffe out of concrete. I work up and down the East Coast. I've also done some acting, some antique dealing."

So what's the deal with the truck?

"I first did that during the Gulf War in 1991. I had 'Surrender Saddam' on it back then. People loved it, and around 1995 a lot of folks were saying I should take the rocket down because the war is over. I knew it wasn't over, but I retired it."

Then came September 11.

"I was in my backyard making a statue and I was listening to Howard Stern. I was probably high from the chemicals I use. When I figured that it was a terrorist attack, I came up with the America C.A.R.E.S. acronym. So I did the truck to support the troops and to remember 9/11-and to never let people forget. I want to keep people mindful of what went on and is still going on. You don't have to support the war, but you should support the soldiers."

Hunt explains that perhaps he goes a little nuts with his rocket truck because he was raised by a World War II veteran father who was also a legendary police officer in upstate New York.

"I didn't serve in the military and I didn't become a cop, [so] I do this as a way to repay."

Hunt told me he spent about $50,000 on his new truck and laughed when he recalled how people ask him why he would do that to a new truck.

"I don't see how I can't. If you cannot support the troops who are fighting for your freedom I don't know what you can support." Hunt went on to tell me that he drives down to New York every Memorial Day, July 4 and on September 11.

"I park the truck and just walk away. The message is the truck, not me. People love it. I had one girl walk by and put a sign on it that I was supporting killing civilians and that our soldiers were baby killers. The crowd started to taunt her, so I walked up and took her sign down, but I let her stand up on the truck and speak her views. I don't support killing anyone-Iraqis or anyone else-except for terrorists. She tried to talk to the crowd [and] they didn't want to hear it, but she had a right to speak."

Hunt also likes to take his truck down to Norfolk, VA, whenever a battleship pulls in from the Gulf.

"I was there when the Theodore Roosevelt docked and the sailors went crazy for the truck. They told me they were worried that the public was against their efforts. It made them feel good seeing that."

I asked Hunt if he would be coming down to the city next month for the Republican Convention.

"I might, given all that Michael Moore Fahrenheit 9/11 talk. I might have to come out and show the other side. I am not all that political, but I don't think the country needs a change right now. It might be a show of weakness to the terrorists."

Hunt signed off with one final thought on himself.

"I am a loud-mouth redneck with a point of view. I don't wave an American flag to be trendy. If you don't believe in it, don't show it." o