Miller and his team are preparing to row across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a 3,000 mile journey where he will constantly push forward and push against his past.
CLARENCE, NY – Great Lakes waves may not be as big as those in the Atlantic Ocean. But how Clarence’s Chad Miller has learnedyou have to conquer the small challenges before you can face the big ones.
Or in his case, a 3,000-mile one, as Miller and his team prepare to row across the Atlantic Ocean. It is a journey where he will constantly move forward, but at the same time, push against his past.
“I called them and I regret calling them to this day. My mom knew something was wrong,” Miller said. “You know, my brother knew something was wrong. I was just going to go to work and then say, ‘Hey, I’m going, I’ll be right back, to the bathroom.’ And I planned for it to be so.”
It was one of two times in Miller’s life that he contemplated suicide while serving five tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
“They call it 22 a day because so many veterans take their own lives. You scroll through your Facebook page and it’s like, ‘There’s another one. There’s another one,'” Miller said.
Nick Rahn was almost one of them.
“I’ve loaded more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, that’s the only misfire ever, so it’s pretty clear it wasn’t supposed to go off,” Rahn said.
And after four innings together, he was the one Miller called when he thought about picking himself up a second time.
“Sometimes there are truths that you don’t want to hear, that you have to hear in order to change where you are and where you’re going,” Miller said.
“I was lucky enough to have a second chance and I decided I was just going to use that second chance to try and inspire as many people as I could.”
That’s what they plan to do, along with two other members of the Fight Oar Die team — Tommy Hester of landlocked Nebraska and William Janssen of Webster, Wisconsin — as they embark on their journey next month, with the mission to inspired other passing veterans. similar fights.
But just crossing the ocean is not enough. The team is aiming to set a new world record by becoming the fastest US veteran team to achieve the feat in less than 50 days, 11 hours and 8 minutes in a body of water nine times their size. in which they have been training.
“It seemed like an impossible challenge,” Miller said. “Then we got on the boat, gathered the team and started training together, then it didn’t seem so impossible.”
So as he bonds with his driving machine here at home for the last time, Miller’s mind is at ease because he knows that this time he won’t have to face this challenge alone.
