Veteran starts suicide prevention walk from Key West

Former Marine Ron Zaleski started his roughly 2,200-mile cross country journey from Key West to San Diego this month to not only raise awareness about suicide rates among veterans, but also for a “call to action,” as he put it.

Zeleski started the journey on Sept. 11 at the Southernmost Point Buoy and has made his way out of the Keys and onto mainland Florida.

Zaleski founded the program “The Long Walk Home,” which is on a mission to empower veterans around the country and prevent veteran suicide. Each day, roughly 18 veterans are lost to suicide, which Zaleski calls unacceptable.

“They lost the war at home,” Zaleski told The Keys Citizen on his walk out of the Keys. “They went to war and brought it home with them, and then they lost the war at home.”

Zaleski served in the U.S. Marines from 1970 to 1972. After 9/11, he couldn’t stand and watch veterans deal with their trauma without guidance, he said. To create awareness about veteran suicide, he walked the Appalachian Trail barefoot in 2006 into 2007 and then across the country barefoot in 2010 into 2011 with a petition to provide counseling for veterans prior to discharge.

He’s doing this walk again to create accountability and remind the country why veterans’ voices need to be heard. He called his latest walk a “call to action.”

“The time for awareness is over,” he said. “The time to act is now. It’s about doing something.”

In addition to the walks, The Long Walk Home offers mentorship and peer support programs for veterans, camping retreats and one-day group sessions via Zoom, according to the group’s website.

The group also has a section on its website that allows veterans to take 10 challenges or mental inventory. The first challenge is simply expressing what they have gratitude for, the survey states. Other challenges include “creating goals,” “rise above anger” and “mindfulness/self-care.”

“We help shift their perception from anger to mindfulness,” Zaleski said. “We were once warriors. Now it’s time for us to be leaders.”

Information on The Long Walk Home can be found at thelongwalkhome.org/.

Zaleski started his walk out of Key West wearing a sign around his neck that read “today I am walking for Todd Russell Marine Corp passed Nov. 8 2008.” Russell was a Marine who served in the Gulf War and then was a police officer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Russell took his life after suffering for years from post-traumatic stress disorder, not only from his military combat experience, but also for having to fatally shooting a suspect involved in a crime. He was the son-in-law of Key West resident Tim Root. Russell was a husband and the father of two children, Root said.

The Russell family’s experience with Zaleski has helped members better heal, Root said.