Taking a long walk for veterans
John Ring always wanted to travel across the country.
He never thought he would do it on foot.
Ring, who lives in Richmond Hill, Ga., traveled through Demopolis last week in an effort to draw attention to Buddy Watch, Inc. The organization is trying to raise money to build tiny houses for homeless veterans.
“I’ve been seeing our veterans suffering” during the four years he has been working with them, said Ring.
“I believe veterans are chess pieces,” he said. They get moved around with no results. Many have ended up in the criminal justice system, often because there is a lack of treatment for such conditions as PTSD and drug or alcohol addiction. Many also are homeless because of addiction and PTSD.
Ring started his “pier to pier” (or “peer-to-peer”) trek with only three weeks of planning. He left from the pier at Tybee Island, Ga., on Oct. 1 and expects to take 80 days to walk across the southern part of the United States to the Santa Monica pier in California.
Through a GoFundMe account, Ring is helping to raise the $200,000 needed to build 17 tiny homes in Midway, Ga., adjacent to Ft. Stewart. The Buddy Watch community is a project of the founder of Coastal Family Counseling, Jo Coleman. Ring said Coleman’s son came back from deployment in 2007 and “she didn’t understand what was going on with her son.”
Coleman, who already was in social work, received more certification from the Veterans Administration to counsel veterans and their families and started her counseling service.
While he’s not opposed to sleeping under the stars, Ring would rather stay with people along the way.
“I like to give people the opportunity to listen” to the need to help veterans. For the most part his efforts have been very successful. If it can be arranged, he speaks to groups as he travels, such as a veterans’ organization in Montgomery.
In Uniontown he had trouble finding a place to sleep. After contacting the principal at R.C. Hatch High School who called Mayor Jamaal Hunter, Ring slept in City Hall for a night.
In Demopolis the Econo Lodge offered him a room for two nights before he took to the road again on Friday morning.
Ring straps on a backpack weighing between 50 and 60 pounds as he travels 15 to 20 miles each day. He is chronicling his walk not only on his web site but by having a tattoo inked on his arm in every state he travels.
Ring admits to taking breaks. Severe weather stopped him at Warner-Robbins, Ga., and he will return home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. He tries to get back when he can to watch the youngest of his four children, now 13, who has begun wrestling.
He also doesn’t want to break tradition. For the past three years he has helped to hand out food to veterans on the holidays.
When Ring stopped in Demopolis, he had traveled about 450 miles. He will continue along U.S. 80 until Jackson, Miss. Then those who follow him online will vote whether he will continue directly across the country or take a more northerly route.
The walk is “helping me as much as the cause I’m walking for,” said Ring. It gives him the opportunity to experience in a small way what veterans who are chronically homeless go through.
Back in Georgia, Ring is marketing director at Coastal Georgia Media. He serves in the 48th Infantry Combat Team with the U.S. Army Reserve and is a graduate of Ft. Benning, Ga. His eldest son, now 20, is stationed at Ft. Hood, Tex., and is getting ready for his second deployment to the Mid-East.
Those who want to follow Ring on his journey can logon to www.wheresjohnring.com.