Area veteran marches for vets, cancer patients

GREENVILLE - For 26-year-old Daniel Gorchals of Weyauwega, the heavy pack and desert combat gear is one he's familiar with. The Air Force veteran carried it often while in the military.

However, the longest march he says he carried the 30-pound bag for was about 14 miles.

His trek on a cool, sunny autumn morning was much longer.

"I think that if my mom and some of the people that have been closest me, that have been affected by breast cancer, can go through all their treatments and beat breast cancer, I think I can walk to Appleton to raise awareness and money for them," Gorchals said walking near Greenville late Monday morning.

Starting at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Fremont Monday, Gorchals set out along the route his mother has taken to the Martha Siekman Cancer Center in Appleton for breast cancer treatment since being diagnosed in June. According to an online mapping service , it's a 24-mile journey.

• Click here to see photos of the walk

His goal is to raise $6,000 – giving half to the Appleton Medical Center Foundation Cancer Care Support Fund, to use for things like gas cards for cancer treatment patients; the other half to go to Operation Muskie, a program that takes recently returned foreign war veterans Muskie fishing.

"He came up with it all on his own and asked me if I thought it was a good idea,” explained his mother Nancy Gorchals, watching her son walk down Highway 96 in Greeville. “I thought it was an amazing idea."

Daniel wasn’t alone in his journey.

His father, a Waupaca county sheriff's deputy, served as police escort. Friends and supporters flanked him along the way – including complete strangers like Klay Konrad of Kaukauna.

"I don't know him at all,” said Konrad, an Army veteran. “I was at work and read it in the paper and I thought he might want someone to (walk) with."

"A lot of people do a lot of stuff for people in the military and we can't always give back."

"When I said it was going to be the most physically demanding thing that I've ever done, I was totally right," said a weary Gorchals.

Nearly seven hours after he set out Gorchals arrived at the Appleton Medical Center, completing what he set out to do. But work still needs to be done. Gorchals says he's raised a few thousand of dollars already, but needs help for his cause.

His family asks that any funds for “Daniel’s Walk for Warriors” to be sent to the following address:

P.O. Box 745
Weyauwega, Wis.