Meet Mike...

I received an email from my uncle who is an anchorman in the Duluth area.  He told me about a man their station had interviewed, who was running from the northern border of the US to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas.  His purpose:  to honor the lost soldiers of the Afghanistan war.  I never did see the story as our computer was not working properly, so I just kept about my day, thinking how cool it was at what this man was doing.

About a week later, I read an article in our local paper about the same man who would be running right through a town about 15 miles east of us.  In fact, there was to be a spaghetti dinner held in his honor, in which he would be the guest speaker.  Of course we were going!  I cancelled the kids activities for the night and off we went.

Mike is the one with the hat

Mike Ehredt is a proud veteran and a dedicated runner.  As we ate, he shared his story with us.  He was a postal worker, and woke up one morning, knowing he needed to do something more to honor our vets.  With many months of research and preparation, in 2007, he ran from the West coast to the East coast, over 4400 miles.  He placed a flag, in which he had prepared with a yellow tag, bearing the name of a lost soldier from the Iraqi war, their age, rank and hometown, every mile...EVERY MILE!  He ran 30 miles a day!  Most would think he had a van following behind with his gear and other necessities  Nope, not Mike.  He pushed a stroller, carrying only the things he needed for a few days.  He had mailed the other items to his hosts along the way, like new shoes, clean clothes, and more flags.  Several times he got stopped and questioned by the police about the stroller.  Imagine seeing a man, in the middle of summer, jogging across Nebraska, pushing a covered stroller...not a common sight.  He finally tried to have some fun with it and told the police that the baby got too heavy so he left it in a corn field.  Of course, he clarified his true purpose immediately following.

This year, Mike's goal is to run from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, placing a flag for a lost soldier from the Afghanistan war every mile, running a marathon a day.  I had the great honor of running 1 1/2 miles with him the morning after the spaghetti feed. A group gathered on the south side of Baldwin, WI.  Someone asked me if I was going to carry the flag the whole time.  I said, "Sure am.  I'll be carrying it 26 miles in November."  Then Mike turned around and said, "You can carry it 26 today!"  I laughed and said, "If I didn't have to take my little girl to her 2nd day of kindergarten, I'd be so very tempted!"  With a firetruck escorting from behind, the other supporters and I ran beside Mike while we talked about what it was like to do this every day.  He and I agreed that when you do something big, for a good cause, you seem to get an extra source of motivation and strength.  His pace was not fast, but that was not his purpose.  He wanted to honor every lost hero.  The younger runners in the group had the honor of following through Mike's process of placing a flag. First, he would take the flag, in a specific order, read the name, rank, age, & hometown.  Then he would place it in the ground, using a GPS to know where every mile would be.  We saluted it, and kept going for another mile.  He had set up an app, so that every flag could be located.  For instance, if you know someone who was killed in either the Iraqi or Afghanistan war, you could go to his website and find where that particular soldier's flag is and see a picture of it.  Cool huh?  He also had a gadget on his stroller that would send a signal every 3 minutes to let his website know where he is.  So, if he is close to you, and you feel like running with an incredible man, you'll be able to find him. He plans on finishing November 11th, how appropriate, Veteran's Day.

This experience has truly shown me that there is so much hope in our country.  With people like Mike, who are ready to drop their everyday life to do something extraordinary to honor those who give everything and ask for nothing in return, our country will continue to become stronger.  I believe there is hope.  I believe there are many who love this country and love their freedoms.  I believe in America!

There are just 19 days until I have the honor of carrying the American flag through the streets of New York for an incredible organization who helps and honors those who have sacrificed:  our heroes, our soldiers.  I am just over 1/3 of the way of reaching my goal of raising $3000 for this group. If you would like to be apart of this achievement, please go to the website below and donate.  It will be ever so greatly appreciated!

To donate to Hope for the Warriors

To follow Mike on his quest