After the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2007, the team visited the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington after its visit to the White House.
There, Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino, co-owner and CEO of the club respectively, saw many soldiers who were being treated not for physical injuries but for PTSD — Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When they got back to Boston, they contacted Massachusetts General Hospital. As a result of reaching out, the Red Sox and MGH founded Run to Home Base, and ran their first 9K road race in 2010, with proceeds going toward the program.
Saturday was the 10th annual Run to Home Base race, which begins and ends at Fenway Park. Around 50 runners who set out to do the nine meters 2010 have gone onto take part in all 10 events, says Lynn’s Jason Thompson. He is one of them.
Thompson, who was a transportation specialist in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm, considers himself fortunate in that he’s never exhibited any signs of PTSD. But when he heard about the race, from a friend of his wife Jodi’s, who works at Mass. General, he saw it as a way to help fellow veterans who are suffering from conditions not readily apparent to the naked eye.
“We say ‘never leave a soldier behind on a battlefield.’ That has to apply when they get home too,” said Thompson, who joined the Army in 1989 after graduating from Salem High. “We have to do all we can for the ones who are injured inside.
“I just saw this is a way I could help my fellow veterans,” he said. “And that’s my whole motivation.”
There were some special perks in store for Thompson this year — the biggest being that as a 10-year man, he got to go on the field at Fenway and take part in the pre-game ceremonies before the Red Sox and New York Yankees played.
“It was a great day,” he said. “And it was a lot of fun, being on the field. But I wouldn’t have cared if I wasn’t. I don’t do this for tickets to the game, or to go on the field, or for the personalized jersey. For me, it’s all about helping veterans.”
Thompson spent 7½ years in the Army before a back injury forced him to seek a discharge.
“I couldn’t do my job,” he said, “so I felt the best thing to do was to get out and move on with my life.”
The injury has healed, and Thompson now works for Merrimack Distributors, and some of his company’s clients are in Lynn. The company and its owners are also generous sponsors when Thompson raises funds for the race, he said.
“This year, I raised $4,000,” he said. “It’s the most I’ve ever raised. It’s not hard to raise money when you tell people it’s for a veterans’ cause.”
No amount of money donated is too small, he said.
“It all goes somewhere,” he said. “There’s transportation to get people to Boston. There’s the stay in the hospital. There are the specialists needed to treat people.
The program is all-encompassing, he said.
“The main speaker Saturday was a former Navy Seal who realized when he got home that stuff wasn’t right in his head.
“The program did everything,” Thompson said. “It set him up with clinicians, sleep studies, they did all the testing, group therapy, hooked him up with other veterans experiencing similar things … and he said he feels his somewhat close to being back to normal now.”
He said some branches of the service train their people not to feel emotion, and as a result, they have a tough time adjusting to civilian life.
“But there is pain,” he said. “There is emotion. And when they get home, they experience some of it and become very disconnected with life.
“We lose 22 veterans a day due to suicide from PTSD,” he said.
The race began at Fenway Park and proceeded over the Mass. Avenue Bridge and along the Charles River before retracing its steps, going back over the bridge and into the stadium via Lansdowne Street. All runners who make that far get to cross home plate.
“It was a little hot,” he said. “But there’s always a breeze at the Charles, and most of the run along the river in Cambridge was in the shade. It was a nice day for it.”
Thompson said he gets plenty of help and support when it comes to raising money, but his wife is still his “rock.”
“She is the backbone of my fundraiser at the Lazy Dog every year,” Thompson said.
