I grew up on a farm
in the small town of Lovettsville, Virginia. During my junior year at Virginia Tech in 2006, I read the book “Brotherhood of Heroes” about the Marines on Peleliu. This story helped me realize that my life was missing the elements of courage, brotherhood, and selflessness. The following day, without consulting anyone, I went to the Marine Corps Recruiter’s office and set my path on finding those missing elements by joining the Marine Corps.
I was assigned to
B Company, 4th Combat engineer Battalion, in Roanoke as a combat engineer and in 2008 deployed to Iraq with the role of finding buried caches of weapons. My second deployment was to Afghanistan in 2010, where I was tasked with the job of finding improvised explosive devices. It was in this role that on July 22, I stepped on an IED, which resulted in double above knee amputations of my legs.
Five days later,
I arrived at National Naval Medical Center, having left in Afghanistan the Marines that supplied my brotherhood, and the mission that gave me courage and selflessness. I had lost my path toward these elements. Shortly after waking up, I met two fellow amputees who showed me firsthand that a new path could be found that brought me these same elements. With the support of my family, the hospital staff, and the Marine Corps, I began my search for that path by healing, regaining my strength, and learning how to walk, ride a bike, run, and row.
I retired in 2011,
at the end of December. I was leaving behind the world I had known for five years, but armed with the tools I needed to find my new path. I immediately began training for the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, and along with my rowing partner, earned a bronze medal in the double sculls event. Not only that, I found an even greater reward when I met a beautiful girl named Pam.
After the 2012 Games
I noticed that something didn’t feel quite right. Despite the great strides in self confidence that rowing had helped me make, I knew that my path did not lay within it. Remembering how difficult and time intensive relearning how to ride a bicycle had been, and knowing that through extreme endurance challenges that push them to their physical and mental limits, many athletes find lifelong purpose, I decided to ride my bike across America in 2013 along with my brother Steve in a support vehicle. Six months, 5,181 miles, one polar vortex and $125,000 raised for charity later, I crossed the finish line at Camp Pendleton. But, something was still missing.
It took two years,
and a failed attempt to make the 2016 Paralympics in triathlon for me to determine what was missing, and how to encompass brotherhood, courage, and selflessness into one endeavor. The bike ride, I realized, had been about pushing myself. It was all about me. What I needed was a challenge whose purpose was selfless. I would run 31 marathons in 31 consecutive days in 31 different cities to create a positive story that veterans and civilians could use when they were struggling. After I ensured Pam would help me, my training began.
After 18 months
of training and planning with my team, including Pam, my mom, and my friend Colin in the RV and my team of volunteers at home, despite the mountain of uncertainties about whether or not my body would fall apart, the Month of Marathons began on October 12, 2017 in London. We overcame logistical challenges, the relentless physical effort, and a back injury to complete all 812.2 miles on time, raising $225,000 for veteran charities. As I crossed the finish line with people from my entire life watching, I embraced Pam and my family. The last few steps I took coincided perfectly with the last few steps I needed to take to return to my path.