Army vet Craig Daniels' 2022 Cascadia features 500 veterans' signatures

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In November 2021, Crete Carrier Corporation driver Craig Daniels received the keys to one of the fleet's few "Patriot Fleet" veterans-support trucks, outfitted with a special wrap.

Daniels, a U.S. Army veteran himself and who drives for Crete's Shaffer Trucking refrigerated division hauling refrigerated goods across the Lower 48, has been with the company for 11 years. He brought his unit, a 2022 Freightliner Cascadia, to the Stars, Stripes and White Lines Truck Show, hosted by the Bennett Family of Companies, held last fall at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The show, itself themed around patriotism, benefited Wreaths Across America.

[Related: What Wreaths Across America means to trucking, and all of us]

Each year, Crete awards five Patriot Fleet trucks to military veterans driving for the company around Veterans Day celebrations. "So out of the fleet of 6,000, there's no more than 15 or 20 of them out at any one time," Daniels said.

Craig DanielsCraig DanielsDaniels' '22 Cascadia brings more unique qualities to the fleet, though. His is the only Patriot Fleet truck that features the signatures of military veterans from around the country.

"It's been very humbling because everybody that has signed the truck, I spend 5, 10, 15 minutes depending on where I'm at, and I talk to them about their story, their time in the service or whatever," Daniels said. "Just to hear their stories while they signed the truck and while I talked to them, it's just been incredibly humbling."

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'The Patriot Fleet' and signatures on Craig Daniels' hoodCrete's Patriot Fleet logo atop the hood is covered in signatures from veterans Daniels has encountered during his travels.

After receiving the truck in November 2021, Daniels got the idea for the signatures the following March. He said he was in Nashville, getting off the interstate to get fuel, "and a panhandler was standing on the corner and he stood up and saluted the truck," he said. "I knew he had a story, but I just whipped right through and I couldn't talk to him, couldn't do anything, couldn't find out about him, couldn't do anything with him. Then I figured I need to have a way to remember these stories. So that's what I do. That's when I started doing this."

During his work across the country, as well as his volunteer work with the veterans-support Joshua Chamberlain Society organization (adopting veterans and their families for long-term support), Daniels has collected more than 500 signatures on the rig.

Purple Heat signatures on Craig Daniels' Freightliner CascadiaOn the driver's side door, in purple marker, Purple Heart recipients have made their mark.

The driver's side cab extender "has the names of friends that we lost in combat," Daniels said. "And I met up with one guy that wrote seven names down on there. And he was the sole survivor of a squad that got wiped out in Fallujah."

Names of 13 killed in Afghanistan on Craig Daniels' FreightlinerThe passenger side cab extender has a list of the names of the 13 service members who lost their lives during the U.S.' exit from Afghanistan in 2021.

Daniels said that, for him, while the stories from veterans who were wounded in combat are extremely humbling, he keeps a special place in his heart for the veterans with "imposter syndrome," he said, who didn't serve in combat roles, and "they don't feel like they need to call themselves a veteran.

"To me, that's just as humbling as running across somebody that had a leg blown off."

Daniels has been documenting his journey of getting signatures on the truck on his Instagram and TikTok accounts, with the hashtag "SignTheTruck."

[Related: Longtime custom builder Rethwisch Transport’s comeback 2023 Peterbilt 389]


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