Darryl Caswell took out a loan to buy his baby, a Honda CBR600RR sport motorcycle painted orange. He didn't spend $13,000 to drive slowly.

Near Bowmanville, his home-town, and near Petawawa, where his Royal Canadian Dragoons were based, Caswell careened through the streets, sometimes in excess of 150 kilometres per hour, seeking thrills, courting danger, "this orange blur," his stepmother says, on dark, small-town nights. Darryl being reckless. Darryl being Darryl.

In the summer of 2006, Caswell got a speeding ticket – another speeding ticket – riding the bike near Peterborough. His superiors, unamused, issued a warning: one more ticket, no more Afghanistan.

Caswell burned his tires. He put the Honda in storage. At the end of January 2007, he deployed to Kandahar. To read the rest of the article: http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSections/article/533583