Shepherd’s Men, a group of active duty soldiers, veterans, and civilians, are four days into their run to raise awareness for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
The 17 members began on May 22 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the Flight 93 Memorial site and travel to and run a 22K in seven other cities, ending in Atlanta, Georgia, on Memorial Day.
Each participant will wear a 22-pound weighted vest in each city to represent the 22 vets per day who commit suicide. On the first day, Shepherd’s Men ran with 93-pound vests on to pay homage to the passengers who were on Flight 93 in 2001 and bring awareness to what ordinary citizens are capable of doing.
Runners are raising money to support the Shepherd Center’s SHARE Military Initiative, a program in Atlanta that provides rehabilitation and support for post-9/11 veterans with PTSD and TBI. The program has successfully helped more than 300 of them since 2008.
“It’s reported that 300,000 vets have suffered from PTSD or TBI since 2001, and we want to help every vet we come across feel more comfortable coming forward with the things they’re dealing with,” Shepherd’s Men co-founder Troy Campbell told Runner's World by phone.
Campbell, a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, got involved with SHARE when he was stationed in Atlanta in 2013.
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“I went to an event at the Shepherd Center and ended up talking with not only the clients, but the spouses of those clients, and was just blown away by their stories,” Campbell said. “And I thought, ‘Wow, this program is really saving lives here.’”
Campbell knew he wanted to be part of the organization in some way, and since he had been regularly running for five years at that point, it was only natural for him to do something that involved the activity he loved so much.
So he approached board member Travis Ellis about holding an annual run, which is now in its fourth year.
The run has varied slightly throughout the years, but their overall message has never changed.
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“We want to show vets and anyone else out there to just keep moving forward,” Campbell said.
The route through each city will be available on the SHARE Initiative’s website so that anyone can join. And no, the general public doesn’t have to run the entire 22K with a weighted vest. Campbell just hopes it will spark a conversation, even if that means people only running a 5K or 10K portion.
“We’re hoping a lot of people get involved so we can not only get the word out about SHARE, but hear everyone else’s stories as well,” Campbell said.
Shepherd’s Men has raised over $1.4 million for SHARE since 2014, and hopes to be able to raise $2.2 million by the end of the eight-day run so the program can expand and treat even more vets at a time.
“As the days go on, the run becomes less about the physical and more about the mental—you have to push through those barriers,” Campbell said. “You have to do the same thing in life.”
