21 marathons in 21 days highlighting vets' health needs

Four sneakers. Five-hundred and fifty miles. Twenty-one days. Do the math and Col. Jack Mosher and Maj. Jay Brock, members of the Maine Army National Guard, are combining to run 21 marathons in 21 days.

They hit the road on May 8 in Kittery, Maine, and are expected to complete their mission May 28 at the gates of Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, D.C.

Brock runs 13.1 miles a day, or half the length of a marathon, as does Mosher.

This past Sunday, they made their way through Westport as they ran from Milford to Darien.

"With good friends around, it's possible to get through a marathon a day," said Mosher, an airborne ranger who served in Afghanistan. Mosher and Brock are not running to raise thousands of dollars for a cause. They're running -- testing the limits of their physical abilities -- to raise awareness and "highlight the need for our (fellow) veterans to take personal responsibility for their health" in what they call the Resiliency Run.

Mosher said many veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan find it hard to adjust to civilian life. Some find it hard to come to grips that their families seemed to be fine without them. Others -- whose wives come to the realization they cannot have a husband deployed from home for months and years on end -- are handed divorce papers soon after getting back to the States.

Mosher said many soldiers need counseling upon returning, but are hesitant to seek help. They've been taught to be strong, to suck it up. They consider asking for help a sign of weakness.

"We lose more people to suicide than combat casualties combined," Mosher said. He hopes the Resiliency Run will inspire veterans to seek out the help they may need. In Connecticut, there's only a 22 percent enrollment rate in counseling programs offered at Veterans Administration hospitals, according to Mosher.

Mosher wants veterans to get off the couch. Spending time in the living room, possibly drinking, won't solve their problems. He advocates counseling as well as exercise. Mosher said a veteran should be strong of body and mind. Healthy soldiers -- physically and mentally -- don't commit suicide, he noted.

Mosher can relate to soldiers returning home and finding life just isn't what it was. In the same boat as many of the returning troops, he suffered nearly a year until "a friend took me by the collar and dragged me to the VA."

Since then, his life has turned around.

At 45 years old, Mosher is out in public, running a half-marathon a day. One might think Mosher and Brock -- who is in his mid-30s -- would have been somewhat tired 10 days into their run. However, Mosher said, "At 10 days we've never run stronger than we are right now. We're busting out better times now than when we started."

Mosher said the 550-mile journey helped him to learn a lot about himself.

"It taught me a lot about self-determination and taught me a lot about my fellow veterans," he said. "Despite my hardship, nothing compared to what others have gone through."

Mosher and Brock -- who made a conscious effort to gain weight before they embarked on their pavement-pounding journey -- have met a number of veterans along the way. They get the word out as they travel via press releases. When all is said and done, they will have run through 11 states. Despite all that exertion, Mosher said he's actually gained a few pounds. The body fat has decreased but the muscle mass has increased. And his blood pressure is also much improved.

Mark Houdlette, a chief warrant officer with the Maine Army National Guard, helps support the Resiliency Run. He maps out the routes the guys will take and drives the mini-van that usually stays a couple of miles ahead of the two runners. Every once in a while, the three men from Maine see sights they find a little unfamiliar. On Monday, for instance, as they ran through Greenwich, Mosher spotted car dealerships selling luxury brands like Ferrarris, Maseratis and Porsches. Houdlette had to get out of his vehicle and snap a few photos.

"Where they had been as veterans is to protect our way of life," Houdlette said. "But sometimes, some of the ways of life we hadn't quite seen before. Ferraris and Maseratis, that isn't something we're used to seeing in Augusta, Maine, that's for sure."

It is the normal, everyday things that make the trip special for these three Maine residents, from watching people go to work or moms dropping off their kids at school.

"It's pretty amazing seeing America at 6.5 miles per hour," Mosher said. "It gives us a lot of detail about the fabric of our society."

For more information about the Resiliency Run route, log onto, http://www.onelifewarrior.org/resiliency-run-2010/