400-mile walk to Washington planned to honor US forces
Deerfield woman, 9 others in relay
The idea came to Marcia Hawkins after her son, a soldier from Deerfield serving in Iraq, said he worried that Americans did not appreciate what he and his fellow troops were doing.
"He said, 'Mom, do people really feel that way about us?' " Hawkins, 44, said, recalling the long-distance telephone conversation with her son, Sergeant Cary Hawkins. "And I said: 'No, honey, not everybody.' I said: 'Oh, honey, if I could walk a mile in your boots I would.' "
To underscore that point, Hawkins has organized a 400-mile walk from Deerfield to the National Mall in Washington. Hawkins and nine others, who call themselves the Battalion of Walkers, leave Deerfield next Sunday and hope to reach the capital in a week.
The journey, which Hawkins has dubbed Walk a Mile for a Soldier, has no political message, she said, noting that she has not even asked her fellow walkers about their views.
"This is not prowar, antiwar. This is Americans marching to say 'thank you' to the troops," said Hawkins, who owns a boutique in Northampton. "I love these soldiers as if each and every one of them belonged to me."
Margaret Tirrell, Hawkins's sister-in-law, who also will participate in the walk, agreed.
"You've got all these men and women, they went over there no questions asked," said Tirrell, 54, who works with Hawkins in the boutique. Her voice caught as she fought back tears. "I just want them to know that we, Americans here, we have freedom because of them. A yellow ribbon isn't enough."
Ever since Cary Hawkins, who is now 22, enlisted in the military on his 18th birthday, his mother has been involved in the lives of his fellow soldiers.
Hawkins befriended many of her son's fellow servicemen when he served in the Old Guard, a ceremonial unit in Washington, and participated in President Reagan's funeral in 2004. Later, she kept in touch with members of the unit, and whenever the soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, Hawkins sent them care packages with food and items they said they needed.
Last year, Hawkins reenlisted and was sent to Iraq with the 25th Infantry Division, which is based in Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. When he complained last winter that he and his fellow soldiers were cold in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, Hawkins and her family decided to spend all of their Christmas shopping money on buying and shipping thermal underwear, thermos bottles, and socks to 16 soldiers there. Hawkins is scheduled to return to the United States in October.
Marcia Hawkins and the soldiers became so close that the men often come to visit her. In 2005, seven of them joined the family for "the best Thanksgiving I've ever had," she said.
One of the soldiers who came that day, Sergeant Emerson N. Brand, 29, of Rigby, Idaho, was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on March 15. The elaborate memorial ceremony in Brand's honor at Fort Hood, Texas, where his First Cavalry Division is based, inspired Hawkins to start thinking of ways to express her gratitude to the troops while they are still alive.
"I don't want something to have to happen to them and then have this outpouring of affection," she said.
Hawkins said her son's concern that the American public does not respect the troops' effort was expressed to her, in e-mails and telephone conversations, by many other soldiers. "They were feeling very unappreciated," she said.
The walk is "a huge thank-you to our troops who protect our freedom -- past, present, injured, disabled, those who have fallen, those who, unfortunately, will," said Hawkins's brother, Michael Tirrell, 53, a BMW salesman who lives in Chicago but who will fly to Massachusetts to join the marchers. (Margaret Tirrell is married to his other brother, Marty.)
Other walkers include a Marine from Deerfield, a soldier from Washington, D.C., and another Massachusetts mother of a service member deployed to Iraq.
The participants will set out at 10 a.m. Aug. 19 from the South Deerfield Fire Department, and will take turns walking for seven days while others drive alongside them.
Hawkins mapped out the walk through various towns and villages along the East Coast, where she hopes to draw attention to the event and sell T-shirts emblazoned with the words: "Land of the free, thanks to the brave." The proceeds from sales will go toward care packages for service members whom she does not know personally, she said.
"It's not about my son," Hawkins said. "It's about every single military soldier." 