[wordup] The Long Walk Home

Thu Jun 25 13:25:08 EDT 2009

This ties in with an American documentary I saw in the Human Rights  
Film Festival earlier this year called "Tattooed Under Fire".  It was  
a movie about soldiers returning from Iraq and how they were passing  
back through this tattoo parlour and what role the tattoos played in  
their lives.

As much as I rant about how stupid I think war, and in particular the  
war in Iraq, is ... I do also strongly believe that if we are going to  
have soldiers then we must spend whatever time and money is required  
to rehabilitate them back into society.  Not only does it make  
financial sense but it's also the only humane thing to do.

Anyway, this stories ties back into those threads and also into my  
current fascination with being barefoot.  Ron Zaleski's decision to  
walk the Appalachian Trail barefoot as a way of drawing attention to  
his cause is inspiring.  The stories he tells in his journal of the  
conversations he has along the way of beautiful (though very simple).

"There's nothing I love more than hearing, watching, or reading  
someone doing the one thing they can't not do." -- Mark Pilgrim

Adam.

Source: http://www.foot.com/articles/?p=606
More: http://camping.lovetoknow.com/Appalachian_Trail_Facts

The Long Walk Home
Source: Lancaster New Era
Publication date: 2006-09-12
Arrival time: 2006-09-14

By Crable, Ad
Ouch. Defying odds, 55-year-old hiking 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail  
barefoot to help war veterans get counseling.

I caught up with Ron Zaleski last week in a motel near Pine Grove,  
Schuylkill County, in the northern shadow of Blue Mountain.

He had come down off the Appalachian Trail for a day because of a  
worsening case of poison ivy.

When you are trying to backpack 2,174 miles from Maine to Georgia  
barefoot, poison ivy on your piggies is more than a nuisance.

 From the looks of things, Zaleski’s treads had other problems after  
more than 1,000 miles of wear.

His toenails were split and chipped. His feet were fissured and a  
disgusting black.

“Somebody on the trail thought I had frostbite because both feet were  
black,” the Flanders, N.Y., hiker laughs.

Although Zaleski, 55, has been called nuts by plenty of people for  
attempting a barefoot trek, it’s not quite the podiatric suicide you  
might think.

He has, in fact, spent the last three decades sans shoes.

Which is related to why he’s really doing this.

Zaleski was drafted during the Vietnam War and served two years in the  
Marines. He was stationed in the U.S. and didn’t see battle action.

But he lost five soldiers he served with and saw returning veterans  
scarred for life.

“I heard guys come back and I heard them scream in their sleep,” he  
says, tears gathering in his eyes.

Angry and consumed by survivor guilt, he vowed to go barefoot as a  
silent memorial to those killed in the war.

He’s done that for 33 years, starting when he went to college on the  
G.I. Bill. He never explained to people why he was barefoot.

He owned his own health club, so work wasn’t a problem. When he goes  
to restaurants and other places that require footwear, he dons a pair  
of goofy flip-flops.

Then, last year, a child came up to him during a class Zaleski was  
teaching and in the inquisitive, straightforward way kids do, asked  
him why he wasn’t wearing shoes.

Something gave way in Zaleski.

He realized that his nonconformity was more about his own self-  
righteousness and anger, and really wasn’t doing anything constructive  
for veterans.

“I thought, what kind of a memorial is this…I hadn’t honored them - it  
was all about me.”

Soon afterward, he chose to fight to convince Congress or the military  
to make it mandatory for soldiers returning from war to undergo  
counseling and be told about the dangers of post-traumatic stress  
disorder and other possible emotional problems.

He points to a recent report published by The Journal of the American  
Medical Association that found that more than one-third of troops  
serving in Iraq seek help for mental-health problems after coming home.

Zaleski says he has talked to mothers of soldiers returning from Iraq.  
“They tell me, I have my son home but he’s not my son.’”

He takes a neutral stance on the Iraq war but not on what wars do to  
soldiers.

“We take a 17- to 19-year-old kid and teach him how to kill. We ask  
him to do the unspeakable and then when they get home, we don’t speak  
about it.”

While counseling for returning vets is offered by the military, it is  
not required, and the option is often not sought because of an  
attached stigma, Zaleski says.

The cost of such counseling should not be prohibitive, especially if  
given in groups. And consider, he adds, the costs of treating later  
mental-health problems or the repercussions of violent behavior.

Zaleski hit on the idea of through-hiking the world’s longest  
continuous mountain trail barefoot as a means to draw attention to his  
crusade and to raise money for such counseling programs.

He considers it his penance.

Zaleski sold his gym and started hiking from Maine’s Mount Katahdin on  
Memorial Day with a goal to reach Springer Mountain in Georgia on  
Veterans Day, Nov. 10.

A runner and scuba diver, but hardly a backpacker, Zaleski started out  
hiking 16 to 20 miles a day.

“Hike the Appalachian Trail barefoot? He won’t make it, I don’t care  
how callused his feet are” scoffed a reader after a story on Zaleski’s  
trip appeared in a Vermont newspaper.

“He’ll last maybe a month.”

Hiking barefoot on a journey in which most people wear out three pairs  
of sturdy boots, it didn’t take him long to get noticed on the trail.

Through-hikers on the AT take trail names. Zaleski came up with his  
own, but later found out he was known up and down the coast as the  
“Holy s— Man,” as in “Holy s—, I can’t believe he’s walking the whole  
trail barefoot.”

Zaleski believes he would be the first person to through-hike the AT  
without shoes. Two sisters from Maine hiked most of it barefoot in  
2000, but donned shoes for snowy sections.

The Guinness Book of World Records is interested.

Zaleski’s gear also attracts stares. His pack, tent and sleeping bag  
are fashioned from strips of Tyvek, a lightweight, wind- and  
waterproof plastic best known for its use as a home insulator.

Trim to begin with, Zaleski has lost 20 pounds pounding the turf. He’s  
getting tired of oatmeal and ramen noodles.

Tough and weathered, his feet still have taken a beating and have  
slowed his pace.

He stubs his toes and bruises the soles of his feet on tree roots and  
jutting rocks.

“High rocks are like running them across a file,” he says.

His feet sometimes are like pincushions for thorns.

Zaleski started out spreading his message by talking to fellow trail  
users and walking into American Legion and VFW posts in towns along  
the way.

To get more exposure for his mission, he briefly leaves the trail  
every two to three days to ring up local newspapers and radio stations.

Last Thursday, Zaleski spent a night in Lancaster County at the  
invitation of a Lititz woman who met Zaleski on the AT in New  
Hampshire in July and was moved by his sincerity.

Zaleski’s message was well received by a group who heard him speak at  
the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster.

Zaleski is asking for donations - one penny for each mile on the AT,  
or $21.74 - to fund counseling programs for veterans. Donations to his  
not-for-profit organization may be sent to The Long Walk Home, P.O.  
Box 929, Riverhead, N.Y., 11901.

Yet Zaleski considers it even more important that Americans write  
letters to their Congressional representatives, the White House and  
key military officials, requesting mandatory counseling for vets.

To get those e-mail addresses, go to The Long Walk Home Web site at www.thelongwalkhome.org 
, then click on “How to Help.”

U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, a Democrat from Washington state, and a  
psychiatrist and Vietnam War medical doctor, has been sufficiently  
impressed by Zaleski’s crusade to call an informal hearing on the  
mandatory counseling for veterans proposal later this month in  
Washington, D.C.

“One person can make a difference. I’d like it to be Ron Zaleski,'’  
the congressman said at a Veterans for Peace Conference speech last  
month in Seattle.

Zaleski, who is twice divorced with two grown sons, plans on  
continuing his hike to Harper’s Ferry, W.Va., before heading to  
Washington to address McDermott’s hearing.

 From there, he’s not sure what will follow. Perhaps, if the campaign  
has enough momentum, he’ll be needed to marshal the forces or get into  
counseling soldiers himself.

Perhaps he’ll get back on the trail and put skin to earth and continue  
on.

“I know I’m committed to this - that’s all I know,” he says.

Just as I finish photographing Zaleski on the AT where it crosses  
Route 501 and we are getting into the car, two hikers pop out of the  
forest.

One happens to be Tom Johnson, the 65-year-old president of the  
Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, the overseer of the AT. He wants to do  
a story on Zaleski’s crusade in the club newsletter.

“What luck,” I say to Zaleski afterward.

“There are no accidents,” he replies.

Caption: Photos by Ad Crable, New Era - Ron Zaleski has hiked more  
than 1 000 miles so far on the Appalachian Trail without shoes.

(Copyright 2006 Lancaster Newspapers)

Publication date: 2006-09-12
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