My college sweetheart and wife Amy and I have lived in Salisbury for over 20 years where we raised our children Austin (29), Myles (28), and Elizabeth Kip (24). Our kids attended Bettie Weaver Elementary, Millwood, and Trinity Episcopal School. Austin graduated from Elon University and now works at Konektio as a Software Engineer, Myles graduated from Elon and then Washington University and now works at KPMG as a Digital Solutions Architect, and Kippy graduated from Pratt Institute and now works at the Anthropology Corporate office in Philadelphia, PA. Amy is an antique dealer.

My mother Sadie Toland was born and raised in Carrigans, Ireland — a town just miles from the border — and immigrated to the US at age 18. Having over 50 relatives there, I spent my childhood visiting and living in Donegal. The border entry points were protected by the British Army mostly consisting of teenage soldiers holding machine guns while driving around in these very same vehicle types. A proud holder of an Irish passport, I spent my earlier career working in IT for financial institutions in several European cities.  I now have a small business called FinTech, and we do government technical contract work for the eA3 program at the Internal Revenue Service.  

While enjoying a Guinness or two on a visit to my favorite cousin last year, a fellow patron showed me this vehicle on his phone. Being a Land Rover fanatic and having owned six Range Rovers, I made him an offer. This is a 1993 British X-Army Land Rover Defender 110 DTI which was imported from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and entered the United States on April 25th, 2023. It has served in “Operation Telic” which was the codename under all of the United Kingdom’s military operations in Iraq. The vehicle spent its later years protecting the Northern Ireland border during the “Troubles,” a period of intense conflict, violence, and political upheaval from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. 

The easy part was the purchase; the hard part was getting it home which took over six months. Importing a military vehicle into the United States is no small task as it involves getting written permission from the British Army, the UK Government, and the US Customs and Border Protection. I am now happy to say it is a licensed Virginia state antique vehicle and a Salisbury road resident. This Land Rover Defender 110 DTI is a bullet-proof vehicle with bullet-proof windows and weighs almost 6,000 lbs. It has working lights, a European police siren, flood and alarm lights, and holds eight soldiers. It also has a type of rollback sunroof for a soldier to be able to stand up through with a weapon to engage enemies. 

We are members of the Irish American Society of Greater Richmond, and I intend to take the jeep to their events, local car shows, St. Patrick’s Day events, and local Irish pubs, and simply enjoy it for a while.