Bill McDannell Walks 3000 miles for Peace! (click here for You Tube statement)
By Michael Stetz / San Diego Union-Tribune
LAKESIDE – Bill McDannell walked from Arlington National Cemetery to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday.
Once he reached the steps, he stopped and shed a few tears.
He had done it.
He had walked 3,185 miles from Lakeside to Washington, D.C. He had walked across the United States.
“I was overcome,” said McDannell, who began his walk in November to protest the war in Iraq.
No reporters met him at the end of his quest. No TV cameras were there. Other than occasional local TV reports and newspaper articles in mostly small-town America, he was unable to attract much media coverage.
At the end, it was just McDannell, his wife, Jonna, and their two dogs. Tourists buzzed around the Capitol, oblivious to his accomplishment, he said.
It was surreal and wonderful at the same time.
“I really wish I could describe it. I can't,” McDannell said.
McDannell had hoped, of course, that his effort would draw more attention, that in some small way a man from Lakeside could have some impact on the national conversation regarding the war.
But the war goes on and shows no sign of ending anytime soon. And that fact is not lost on him.
“Our measure of success was arriving,” said McDannell, 58, a former Methodist minister.
Why didn't national TV crews pick up McDannell's story, the same way they did when Steve Vaught, a San Diego man dubbed “Fat Man Walking,” trekked across the country to lose weight? McDannell thinks it's because he just wasn't gimmicky enough.
He didn't wear a glow-in-the-dark Uncle Sam suit, he said.
“I didn't talk like a freak. I didn't act like a freak,” McDannell said. “I offered no entertainment value.”
Now what?
He and his wife are broke, having sold their double-wide trailer to finance the walk. For now, they're staying with McDannell's son in Alexandria, Va.
McDannell hopes to meet with members of Congress, to call for a quick end to the war.
“The anti-war left is actually the disgusted middle,” he said.
After lobbying Congress, McDannell might walk some more to protest the war. Maybe he'll hike to the state capitals in New England this fall and then do the same in the southeast in the winter.
For now, though, he's just trying to savor this moment.
“I did it for a cause I believe in,” McDannell said. “A country I believe in.”
