A Story About Service, Healing, and the Mountains That Wait

Staff Sergeant Marcus Chen spent 12 years walking point in the Army in Afghanistan, Iraq, places where every step mattered. He learned to read terrain like people read books: understanding slopes, spotting threats, and moving with purpose through landscapes meant to break you.

When he came home to Colorado Springs in 2019, he kept walking. But lost purpose.

"I'd wake up at 0500 out of habit," Marcus tells me over coffee near Garden of the Gods. "But there was nowhere to go. No mission. I'd put on my boots and just... stand there."

Marcus's VA therapist suggested hiking. She encouraged him to get outside and reconnect with nature. Although research supports outdoor recreation for veterans with PTSD, Marcus went mostly because sitting still felt worse than moving.

Pike's Peak was his first solo mission. Eight miles up, elevation gain that would humble most weekend warriors. He made it two miles before his knee—the one hit by shrapnel outside Kandahar gave out. No drama. Just a quiet surrender, sitting on a rock, looking up at a mountain he couldn't climb.

That's when he saw them: two older guys, maybe late 60s, moving past him with trekking poles that clicked against the stones in a steady rhythm. They weren't fast. But they were moving. They nodded at him as they passed, and Marcus noticed the Air Force Veteran patch on one guy's pack.

The trail doesn't care about your service record. But it gives you something the civilian world often doesn't: clear objectives, measurable progress, and the simple dignity of forward movement.

Marcus drove into town and bought hiking poles. Adjustable aluminum, nothing fancy. They felt awkward, like admitting weakness, like his body couldn't do what it once did. On his next try at Pike's Peak, something shifted.

The poles didn't fix his knee or erase the pain. They redistributed it, offering options, so he could keep moving when his body wanted to quit. Proper trekking pole technique can reduce knee stress by up to 25% on steep descents. By mile four, Marcus was no longer thinking about the poles; he was thinking about the summit.

He made it to the top on his third attempt. Fourteen miles round trip. 7,400 feet of elevation gain. At the summit, he pulled out his phone and called his mom. "I climbed a mountain today," he told her. She cried. So did he.

Sarah Rodriguez, a Navy Corpsman, found her own healing journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. Her experience offers a different yet familiar story.

She'd spent two deployments keeping Marines alive in forward operating bases where the nearest hospital was a helicopter ride away. When she got out, she enrolled in nursing school and discovered she couldn't handle emergency rooms. The chaos felt too familiar. The stakes are too high.

"I needed space," Sarah says. "The kind of space where the only person I was responsible for was myself."

She started with day hikes around San Diego. Then overnights. Then, there is a two-week section of the PCT through the San Jacinto Mountains. Her hiking poles became extensions of her body, stability on steep descents, rhythm on long flats, protection when crossing streams swollen with snowmelt.

Sarah says there's something meditative about the click of poles on the trail. To her, it's like a heartbeat, a reminder she's still here, still moving forward, still alive.

Groups like Veterans Expeditions recognize what Sarah did: wilderness therapy helps. Last summer, Sarah finished 500 miles from Tehachapi to Lake Tahoe. When asked why she hikes, she says it's the only place where weight feels like a choice, not a burden.

The journey continues with Major James "Jimmy" Ortiz (Ret.), who walks differently now.

Twenty-three years in the Marine Corps, three combat tours, then a roadside bomb and a traumatic brain injury left him with mobility issues. He retired at 43. Doctors said he'd need a cane for life.

Jimmy hated that word. Cane. It sounded old, finished, defeated.

Then his daughter brought him a hand-carved walking stick from Canes Galore's Veteran Collection Brazilian hardwood, an American flag, and an eagle-head handle. "Dad," she said, "this isn't a cane. It's a hiking staff.

The reframing mattered. A cane is medical. A staff is for adventure.

Now Jimmy hikes the Appalachian Trail with his teenage son. They plan to complete it over five years, state by state. His walking stick is more than mobility help; it's a trailhead conversation starter and a symbol of refusing to be defined by injury.

"I earned this stick," Jimmy says, running his hand over the carved eagle. "Same way I earned everything else. By showing up."

The Veteran Collection at Canes Galore exists because we believe mobility is more than walking; it's reclaiming trails, mountains, wild spaces that don't care about your DD-214.

Our veteran-designed walking sticks and trekking poles aren't medical devices with patriotic images. They're for explorers who need extra support. Each features elements chosen by veterans, tactical grips,  insignias, memorial engravings, and designs honoring service without showing vulnerability.

Whether you're a retired Green Beret navigating rocky Colorado fourteeners, a Coast Guard veteran exploring shoreline trails, or a Marine learning to walk again after injury, these aren't just mobility aids. They're expedition equipment.

Programs like Team RWB and The Mission Continues are helping veterans find community through outdoor activities. Your next mission is waiting.

For veterans and active military, Canes Galore offers a permanent discount on all products, including our Veteran Collection. Service doesn't end at discharge, and neither should adventure.

The mountains are still there. The trails haven't moved. And you've navigated harder terrain than most people can imagine.

The only question is: where will you walk next?

Explore the Veteran Collection at CanesGalore.com. Use code MILITARY at checkout for your service discount.

If you're a veteran with a trail story, we want to hear it. Share your journey with us at stories@canesgalore.com.  Your story might be featured in our next Veteran Trails article.