Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Running for the wounded

One mile into running the New York City Marathon in November, Brad McKee’s left knee seized up.

It was the same inflamed iliotibial band that had frozen in pain three weeks earlier in the last mile of the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington.

But this time, it was worse. He still had 25.2 miles to go and he was wearing cammies and desert boots and humping a 50-pound pack, accompanying a running buddy who had been wounded in combat.

So there he was on that chilly Sunday morning at the starting point on a Staten Island roadway, bitten by the pain dog as some 30,000 people bolted ahead of him.

What to do?

“I resolved on the spot to grind it out,” he said, determined to keep his promise to his buddy and make it within the eight hours allowed by marathon rules to complete the race.

With five seconds to spare, McKee limped across the finish line near nightfall with a time of 7:59:55. He was an emotional wreck — in a happy sort of way.

“I probably hadn’t cried in about seven years, but I was so happy it brought me to tears,” said McKee, 24, who left the Marine Corps as a sergeant in May 2008 after a four-year enlistment on a sniper team and a deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anyone’s story

McKee’s running story could be anyone’s running story. IT band injuries are common among runners and, while not all would have toughed it out as McKee did, many a marathoner has finished a race with a tale of beating the odds.

What’s different about McKee is that in less than four months, on April 3-4, he’ll be putting his knees through an even more hellacious ordeal by embarking on a 100-mile run over 24 hours to raise America’s awareness of its war wounded.

The run is part of a larger project he started last summer in Hammond, La., with two childhood friends, a nonprofit called The Disposable Heroes Project that he said fulfills a promise he made to himself and his fellow troops when he got out of the Marine Corps.

“I made a promise to myself that I would find a way to continue to serve the guys who are no longer here and those who are here and forgotten,” said McKee, whose plan is to raise money, in part, with a documentary about the men and women behind the 36,000 troops listed as wounded in action.

“When I came back, I enrolled in [Louisiana State University] with a whole new focus and discipline. Starting the project was the promise I made myself to continually serve the guys.”

The initial goal was to sell a DVD that would document the personal stories of wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines McKee and his friends planned to find. They’ve interviewed six service members so far and they’re looking for more.

“We’re really not talking to them too much about their injury. We’re getting the story of their life, what sport they played when they were young, how they grew up, what kind of person they are,” said McKee, whose friends and project partners, Samuel Macaluso and Kyle Clements, are using the resources of their own production company to film the wounded.

“Too often the only thing you hear is, ‘Three Marines were killed by a car bomb outside of Baghdad and now the number is 4,300,’ or something. We’re going to tell their stories and people are really going to get to know some of these people.”

Finding funding

They have covered travel expenses by selling T-shirts and commemorative bracelets on their Web site, and McKee has raised money by speaking to local civic and business groups and schools — not by taking a speaking fee, but by persuading people to help.

The $27,000 they’ve raised so far has come from hundreds of individual donations in a groundswell of support; the project, he said, has never received a single contribution of more than $1,000.

They started by sharing some of their money with the Wounded Warrior Project, a high-profile nonprofit with a list of more than 30 corporate sponsors.

But after a few donations, McKee said, he yearned to feel the effect of his efforts more personally, to touch the neediest with money he could see going straight into their homes or with the fulfillment of their wishes.

“I don’t want someone who, even if they’re injured, they don’t need that much help or they’re OK financially. Those are not the people I need to help. I want to find out if there’s someone I haven’t met yet who is in dire need and take care of them,” McKee said.

McKee left for boot camp three days after his 19th birthday, became a sniper in a surveillance and target acquisition company with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, and, over the course of two deployments, he estimates he lost about 20 friends.

The term “disposable heroes” is well-known to Metallica fans — it’s the title of a track from the band’s 1985 album “Master of Puppets.” But McKee, who says he’s never heard the song, chose the name after seeing the phrase emblazoned on the skin of his fellow Marines.

“The name has a positive aspect and a negative aspect, depending on what side you fall on,” he said. “The way a lot of us view ourselves in the military is, we’re willing, in our eyes, to lay down our lives if that’s what it’s going to take and become ‘disposable’ in the name of freedom. The media, a lot of times, mentions our guys as a number or never tell the stories of our guys — then our guys really do become disposable, and that’s what we can’t let happen.”

McKee’s plan to take on the challenge of running 100 miles was hatched one night over a beer — “sort of like the Marine Corps was started at Tun Tavern,” he said — after he saw a TV newscast of a wounded Marine, Sgt. Keith Zeier, as he ran 100 miles to help other wounded warriors. “I thought if that guy could do it, then I can certainly do it, and I planned that night to do it.”

The route

The run will take place in Louisiana on a route that is still under development, and the only people permitted to run with him for free are wounded warriors or current service members.

Anyone else who wants to run the 100 miles is welcome to pay $5,000, and donations can be made separately through www.thedisposableheroesproject.com.

The weekend is already shaping up to be a reunion of sorts, with commitments from families of the fallen and deployed, a friend who is deploying two days after the run and hundreds of other supporters.

As for McKee’s banged-up knees, he says, “I’ll walk on crutches if I have to.”

“When I get out there, my adrenaline is going to be pumping, and when I look to my left and right and see a wounded warrior running with me, or I see someone who lost a loved one, I don’t think there’s any possible way — injury or not — I could tell these people, ‘You keep on running but I have to stop.’

“If it’s pain,” he said, “I’ll push through it.”