Positively Muskegon: Marty Wills - Walking for Warriors

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Marty Wills - Walking for Warriors - Welcome Home!

With the advent of social media, came the chance for just about anyone to be heard about causes that are important to them as well as create new ways for charity and non profits to drum up some awareness by things like "The Ice Water Challenge" or more recently the "22 Push Up Challenge" to bring some awareness to those who are suffering a post traumatic stress disorder diagnosis (PTSD). Mostly veterans are effected by this, but it's not exclusive to those who saw combat.

Marty Wills

On average, and this is a hard thing to process. On average, 22 soldiers kill themselves a day due to PTSD. 22 husbands....22 fathers....22 American hero's that were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the United States. That's an awful lot of people to lose simply because the awareness wasn't there to help them find the way out of the war still playing out in their head. That's 8030 people a year folks!

You may have seen the "22 Push Up Challenge" online. It was the brainchild of #22 Kill and organization dedicated to veteran empowerment to seek and find the help they need. Sure funds have been raised by t-shirt sales....Go Fund Me's etc...but Marty Wills took it all a step further. Well actually, quite a few steps further.

Marty took off from his home in Fruitport on Memorial Day on his way to Camp Lejeune....on foot...to do his part for the program. That's 1060 miles to walk to raise a few bucks and more importantly awareness foe those who suffer silently until they can't take it anymore. Marty is on his way home soon and there's a hero's welcome planned for him at the VFW on S. Getty Saturday August 13th at 4 pm. They are hoping for a potluck style event, so you are invited to bring a dish to pass and bring your sense of community pride for someone who really showed what the Muskegon area is about when it comes to going above an beyond when the cause warrants it.

Delaina Peters caught up with me to talk about the event welcoming home Marty this Saturday, take a listen to our interview below.

It's no easy task to accomplish a walk of 1000+ miles. In fact, once completed he was taken directly to the hospital to have his feet checked out and taken care of properly. Quite a sacrifice. There is still a little way to go on his goal on $10k raised to help 22 Kill. Here's a link to the Go Fund Me page set up by Marty for the walk, it's his picture, or if you'd like...you can contribute Saturday at the welcome home party to a man richly deserving our pride. If you'd like to find out if something specific for the party is needed, you can call Anne Herrick at 231-626-5640. Thank you Marty.....you bring out the best in all of us.