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Jul 2, 2009 9:52 pm US/Eastern
KD Country: Wounded Warrior Project
DERRY (KDKA) ―
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Supporters and veterans have been marching across Pennsylvania the past two weeks to raise money and awareness.
KDKA
The Wounded Warrior Project reaches out to soldiers who return home from foreign wars with physical injuries and painful memories.
Supporters and veterans have been marching across Pennsylvania the past two weeks to raise money and awareness.
The 342-mile PA Hero Walk kicked off on Father's Day, June 21, in Philadelphia.
Two-hundred-and-ninety miles later, they arrived in the Westmoreland County community of Derry, where motorists stopped to drop coins and bills into donation cans carried by the green shirted walkers.
Al Pulice came up with the idea for the walk, which ends with a Fourth of July concert and fireworks in his home town of New Kensington.
"I had the opportunity to meet a young man that was wounded and blinded in Iraq in 2003, Jeremy Feldbusch," he says, "and felt a need to do something to help these young men and women."
Jeremy's father is a national coordinator of the Wounded Warrior Project.
"When my son lay in a bed," Brace Feldbusch recalls, "I asked him 'Do you want to live?' And he said 'Yes, I want to live.' He was actually brought on as first national spokesman for the Wounded Warrior Project. And he's been giving ever since."
There are many reasons to march. Walker Bob Girdano's son was killed in Afghanistan. Joe Gross of Akron Ohio was the victim of an Iraqi suicide bomb, losing his right leg below the knee.
Fellow veteran walker Chris Bain of Williamsport lost the use of his hands in an ambush in Iraq. Now they reach out to other wounded warriors.
"I know where I was at one time," Gross says, "and I know if I can get these guys to not go as deep as I did I know I've done a good job."
Chris Bain agrees.
"It's okay if you've got a disability and some injuries, maybe a little bit of a handicap. It's okay. You can always keep moving forward."
And they will continue moving forward, until the PA Hero Walk comes to an end with fireworks in New Kensington.
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