Boston Red Sox Run to Home Base in Combat PTSD fight

Thousands run for veterans at Fenway
Annual event raises millions
Boston Globe
By Oliver Ortega
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
JULY 20, 2014

THOUSANDS RUN FOR VETS AT FENWAY

More than 2,000 people participated in this year’s Run to Home Base outside Fenway Park on Saturday.

Hosting the event at the home of Boston’s beloved Red Sox helps elevate an issue affecting many in the military, said retired Army Brigadier General Jack Hammond, the executive director of the Home Base foundation.

Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, the Red Sox Foundation funds and oversees the clinic.

Tommy Lee Kidman always wore a smile. His two daughters, Gracie and Madeline were the “light of his eyes,” friends say, and he had an artistic side — he drew, wrote, played the guitar.

But Afghanistan changed him. On the front lines, the Army medic saw death and desolation, fellow soldiers whose wounds he could not heal. The memories tormented him on sleepless nights and led to fits of rage back in the US.

In the end, it proved to be too much. He committed suicide last summer, a year after coming home.

With his friend Kidman as inspiration, Major Craig Meling of Dorchester laced up his best pair of sneakers Saturday morning and joined about 2,600 people running at Fenway Park to raise money for military members suffering from mental trauma and brain injuries — what some call the “invisible wounds” of war.

Now in its fifth year, Run to Home Base has raised more than $11 million for a clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital that serves hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and their families, helping them grapple with the mental illnesses that took the life of Kidman and other soldiers. This year’s run alone raised just under $2 million, said Lee A. Chelminiak, a spokeswoman.
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In Afghanistan, troops join Boston runners
Boston Globe
By Oliver Ortega
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
JULY 20, 2014

Members of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division held their own run in Afghanistan on Friday in support of Saturday’s Run to Home Base event in Boston. The effort was spearheaded by Captain Lukasz Willenberg, the division’s chaplain and an avid runner. Gear and winners’ medals were provided by the Corvias Foundation charity group.

“We thought it would be a great event to bring military and civilian folks together under the banner of Run To The Home Base and ‘Boston Strong,’ ” said Willenberg, who also ran.

About 1,100 soldiers and civilians at the base trekked back and forth on a road that stretched a mile and a half inside Bagram Airfield, the largest US military base in Afghanistan.
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