Walking proud

To follow Mark Klodzinski’s walk across America go to www.patriotwalkusa.org.  

Most travelers over the Independence Day holiday weekend watched the landscape between destinations fly by at 65 miles per hour.

Mark Klodzinski took the 3 mph approach.

Klodzinski, who strolled through Franklin County two weeks ago en route to Pensacola and the Blue Angels on the Fourth, is on a 4,500-mile trek across the country.

Part fund-raiser, part tribute and in significant measure a journey of discovery, Klodzinski is seeing a country he never knew existed, people he will never forget.

“Every day is a new adventure, meeting new people, making new friends,” Klodzinski said. “America is beautiful. Driving by at 65 miles per hour you miss everything. I see it at 3 miles per hour and I see everything.

“I found a calling. It excites the (heck) out of me. It is an adventure. It is a character-builder.”

The former ski instructor, bartender and self-described “weird kid” set off about 50 miles south of Buffalo, NY. No assist car or fellow traveler, just Klodzinki, alone with his thoughts and a passion to honor the troops.

He had recently read “Walk Across America” by Peter Jenkins, a book about a young man seeking a meaning to his life by walking across the country.

Klodzinski sold his car and his skis and scraped together $2,000 to go with a debit card. He hopes to travel on his own dime but realizes he could be out of scratch soon.

But Klodzinski has a mission, to raise money and awareness for a small non-profit located about 30 miles from his home.

The Warrior’s Wish Foundation is founded by veterans and serves veterans by granting life-long dreams and special wishes to veterans of the military battling life-limiting diseases or who have been catastrophically injured in the war on terrorism.

Klodzinski, on behalf of that foundation, made a donation to a wounded soldier in Panama City after he left Franklin County.

For Klodzinski, though, the journey was closer to the heart.

As he described his family, Klodzinski talked of an unusual family dinner among his two brothers, step-brother and step-father – while all were deployed or civilian contractors in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

“My two brothers, they went into the Army and went overseas and they came back different people,” Klodzinski said. “We are going to need to support these guys. You ask a kid nowadays what patriotism all about and he’ll give you a blank stare.”

Klodzinski began to train, four months of distance walking and swimming. His goal: to average 18-25 miles a day.

He set off March 16, marking a blown-up map with his proposed destinations across the country to San Diego and the USS Midway and packing a 65-pound pack with the camping gear, American flags and supplies he believed he would need.

“The only back up I have had is the people I have met in the last town or the people I am going to meet in the next town,” Klodzinski said. “People 99 percent of the time will do what they can to help somebody doing good.

“I’m touching people on this walk and people are touching me.”

The map is now almost a relic now after 1,900 miles or so, he’s worn through three pair of shoes and his backpack is down to 55 pounds.

“You learn what you really need,” Klodzinski said with a laugh.

He has mostly camped, applying the skills learned in the outdoors during his youth in state parks and national forests along the way. He has also been picked up on the radar of the so-called Marine Moms Network, a nationwide support organization of moms with sons and daughters deployed overseas, and they have supplied lodging during his walk.

Klodzinski was in Franklin County June 21 and 22 in part due to the Marine Moms, staying with County Judge Van Russell while in Apalachicola after it had been suggested that Klodzinski take the more scenic route from Tallahassee to Pensacola. Harry Rodder, in Madison, a cousin to Russell’s wife, helped make the arrangements.

“It’s a small world and you never who you’re going to meet and what’s going to come of that,” said Klodzinski. The judge even gave him some books to listen to along his journey.

What’s a few more miles, though, again, there was also a personal element for Klodzinski. “We have troops operating in 120-degree heat, I’m just walking in their honor,” he said.

Klodzinski has a small computer, a video/still camera and cell phone. He posts constantly to the Facebook page chronicling his walk and uploading videos to YouTube when the connection is good enough, which he acknowledged his not often enough for his liking.

He also scratches out notes in a journal, scribbles of the highlights of the day. When the journey is over, Klodzinski said, he plans to retrace his steps, by car this time, and use those notes to flesh out a book of his trek and the people and places that made it special.

The cheese steak sandwich in Philly, the steak he will consume in Texas, the gator eyeing him as he dunked off a hot day in Florida, his steps across the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide sometime this fall  - October 1 is the hoped-for date – and most of all the people he has met and talked to along the way.

“I plan on writing a book or two when I finish,” Klodzinski said. “You almost have to when you do something like this.”

The trip will end in San Diego in December, hopefully in time for Christmas, Klodzinski said.

He has raised $100,000 and counting - $50,000 of that coming from a Pepsi Cola foundation – and has put the Warriors Wish Foundation, a smaller foundation amidst so many Wounded Warrior Projects nationwide, on the map.

And if he accomplishes what he sets to do, Klodzinski will have raised awareness of the sacrifices so many make for the kind of holiday we enjoy this weekend. He will have paid tribute to the warriors in his family and beyond his bloodlines.

He will, also, have learned about himself. About paying sacrifice – and how small a 4,500 “hike” can seem compared to the sacrifices of so many.

“I have learned you can overcome anything you put your mind to,” Klodzinski said. “You learn about yourself as you go along. I have the creativity and I have the ability and drive to finish this. I’m coming out of this with knowledge and a stronger character.”