Louisville Courier-Journal

A Marathon with a Message

Runners raise money for wounded Marine

By Dick Kaukas
April 28, 2007

The Courier-JournalJosh Bleill, a Marine from Greenfield, Ind., who lost both legs above the knee to a roadside bomb in Iraq six months ago, will be on the minds of 20 Purdue University students when they compete in the Kentucky Derby marathon this morning.

The students, members of professor Mike Flynn's annual spring class in "sport physiology and marathon training," will be wearing T-shirts emblazoned with their reason for being in the race:
"26.2. We're running for a while but for every mile it's helping out Josh Bleill."

As part of their run, they've raised more than $5,000 in per-mile pledges for Bleill, a 30-year-old former Purdue undergraduate who is still being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

There had been some talk, said Jon Ealey, 21, a computer graphics technology major, about T-shirts that used the phrase, "We're running for Josh until he can do it himself" -- a reflection of Bleill's determination to make as full a recovery as possible

That would have been an appropriate sentiment but not very likely to happen, Bleill's father, Virg, said yesterday.

"He hates to run," the elder Bleill said with a chuckle. So even after his son completes all his surgery and is fitted for his artificial legs, jogging won't be part of his future.

"He wants to walk well and not be in a wheelchair. And he won't take a handicapped sticker for his car," Virg Bleill said, adding after a long pause that he appreciates all the good wishes but also wants to be sure people realize what his son has given up.

"Look at what Josh did for us," he said.

He and Josh, he added, "feel overwhelmed at the outpouring of sympathy" they have received, especially by the efforts of the students from Purdue, where Bleill studied until about four years ago.

"He is grateful. He gets so many phone calls and e-mails that he can't answer them all," Virg Bleill said, adding after another long pause, "He has a hard time talking about it, just like I do."

Josh Bleill, who couldn't be reached to comment yesterday, joined the Marine reserves about a year and a half ago.

"He was in Iraq 10 days," his father said, when the bomb exploded on Oct. 10 and his legs were gone.

The sport physiology class, in which students from a wide range of majors train for and learn about long-distance running, has a tradition of fundraising, said Flynn.

Three years ago, for example, his 30 students ran in the Derby marathon and collected about $7,000 for a high school student with cerebral palsy.

Flynn, who has known the Bleill family "for about a dozen years," suggested that this year his students try to help the injured Marine, "and they just jumped at the chance."

Flynn said nobody has to finish the 26.2 miles to pass his class, although he does put up brochures that advertise the annual Derby run as "Purdue's toughest final exam."

In fact, he and one student are signed up for the miniMarathon, half the distance, this morning.
Flynn predicted that "the feeling of accomplishment" of those who finish the full race will be enhanced by knowing they've helped somebody else.

"We've been impressed by how determined and courageous Josh has been" during the recovery, Flynn added.

Bleill has a blog, www.joshbleill.blogspot.com. One of the pictures shows him as President Bush pins the Purple Heart to his shirt. In another, he's on a treadmill with his artificial legs. He is smiling in both photos.

Jon Ealey, Catherine Taylor and Jenny Bitzan, three of the Purdue students who were en route to Louisville yesterday afternoon, said they were glad their marathon will help a Marine who went to Purdue.

"I mean it is an extraordinary thing," said Ealey, who has been running three or four days a week and will be in his first marathon. "He's a Boilermaker, so helping him out sounded like the right thing to do."

Taylor, 22, a senior majoring in health and fitness who also is a first-time marathoner, said she and the other students wanted to help even though none of them know Bleill personally.

"It sounded kinda neat to be able to use the class to do something for somebody else -- somebody who needs it," she said.

Bitzan, 21, a mechanical engineering major, laughed when she was asked if she has run a marathon before.

"I've done like 10Ks," but that's all, she said. "I really like being challenged, and a couple of people who took the class said the professor is really amazing, so I took it, too."

Knowing Bleill's story, she said, "gives you a good reason to run. It gives you a little extra motivation."