{"id":798063,"date":"2019-07-29T10:42:14","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369275"},"modified":"2019-07-29T10:42:14","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T16:42:14","slug":"71-year-old-air-force-veteran-walking-across-america-to-support-veterans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/71-year-old-air-force-veteran-walking-across-america-to-support-veterans\/","title":{"rendered":"71-year-old Air Force veteran walking across America to support veterans"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/page2-sdn-072519-1024x576.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/page2-sdn-072519-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/page2-sdn-072519-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/07\/page2-sdn-072519-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>William Shuttleworth, left, a 71-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, met Tuesday, July 23, in Silverthorne with Stuart &#8220;Boot&#8221; Gordon, 95, who served in World War II as a fighter pilot. Shuttleworth was passing through Summit County as part of his \u201cVets Don\u2019t Forget Vets\u201d seven-month walk across the United States from Massachusetts to California. He also stopped in Frisco before continuing his journey west.<\/strong><br \/><em>Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>How does a 71-year-old retired U.S. Air Force veteran go about walking across the country?<\/p>\n<p>Last summer, William Shuttleworth was running a campsite in California and created three spaces for homeless veterans. Every day, he would hear their stories of struggle, hardship and suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI walk 20 miles a day, why not walk in a straight line across the country to help veterans?\u201d Shuttleworth said to Veterans of Foreign Wars members over coffee in Avon on Friday, a little more than halfway through his seven-month cross-country journey.<\/p>\n<p>Before heading west to Eagle County, Shuttleworth stopped Tuesday, July 23, in Silverthorne and Wednesday, July 24, in Frisco.<\/p>\n<p>The father, grandfather, former teacher, psychologist and veteran left his Newburyport, Massachusetts, home on May 15. He\u2019s averaging about 30 miles a day. When he arrives at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, he will have taken 10 million steps across 13 states.<\/p>\n<p>Shuttleworth is walking across America not only to raise awareness about veteran issues but also to advocate a plan for better support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe issue about veterans has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a red, white and blue issue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two veterans die by suicide every hour, Shuttleworth said, and there are 62,000 homeless veterans. Another problem Shuttleworth sees is that Congress is made up of few veterans.<\/p>\n<p>His five-step plan to help veterans includes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Elect a vet<\/li>\n<li>Eliminate veteran homelessness<\/li>\n<li>Provide free medical care for veterans<\/li>\n<li>Guarantee medical and mental health treatment<\/li>\n<li>Increase starting pay for enlistees to a livable wage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Shuttleworth has set up a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/vets-don039t-forget-vets\/donate\">GoFundMe page<\/a>&nbsp;and is hoping to raise $100,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll that money goes to the veterans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>People of America<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Shuttleworth is stopping and speaking with communities across the country, including veterans, local and state officials, and people in coffee shops.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe stories are more compelling than they are fun,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>From Quincy, Illinois, to St. Francis, Kansas, he crossed two states all on U.S. Highway 36, about 580 miles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe heat bothers me more than anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, he met one mother who has seven of her children deployed overseas and prays each night that the phone doesn\u2019t ring.<\/p>\n<p>He met one veteran who lost both legs and now is running his own garage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018I feel like your legs are my legs, and you\u2019re walking across America for me,\u2019\u201d Shuttleworth recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Small towns in Kansas and Colorado have welcomed him with motorcades, fire trucks and Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery day is just amazing,\u201d Shuttleworth said.<\/p>\n<p><em>This story is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/news\/10-million-steps-71-year-old-veteran-walking-across-america-to-support-veterans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"VailDaily.com (opens in a new tab)\">VailDaily.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/71-year-old-air-force-veteran-walking-across-america-to-support-veterans\/?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Shuttleworth, left, a 71-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran, met Tuesday, July 23, in Silverthorne with Stuart &#8220;Boot&#8221; Gordon, 95, who served in World War II as a fighter pilot. Shuttleworth was passing through Summit County as part of his \u201cVets Don\u2019t Forget Vets\u201d seven-month walk across the United States from Massachusetts to California. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 13:20:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}