VALDOSTA — David Whittaker, the disabled veteran who took on what he described as a mission from God to travel from Key West, Fla., to Blaine, Wash., in his motorized wheelchair, towing a 130-pound American flag, has made it to Longbeach, Calif.
When interviewed during his Valdosta stop in June, Whittaker predicted he would reach Blaine by October. That date has now been pushed forward to November, he said.
Whittaker lost an eye in an accident while in U.S. Marine Corps basic training in 1973 and was given a medical discharge. Doctors managed to replace the eye, but he was dogged by other health problems, including congestive heart failure, which contributed to financial troubles that left him in a wheelchair and homeless.
During one restless night in a Florida hotel room last year, “in bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling,” Whittaker said he “heard God’s voice” telling him to spread the word about veterans who had no beds, no ceilings to stare at. He set out in May of 2009 from Key West, Fla., the southernmost city in the continental United States, to Blaine, Wash., the northwesternmost. Blaine’s northern boundary is the Canadian border.
All along, Whittaker has insisted he doesn’t want the focus of attention to be on him and his disability, but on the approximately 400,000 honorably discharged veterans who served during wartime and are now “sleeping under bridges, in doorways, on boxes in creek beds.”
Whittaker has encountered numerous obstacles during his trek. In Florida, he had 17 flat tires.
“Every bridge I crossed, I ran over a fish hook,” he said.
He has been drenched in downpours, mugged in Atlanta by two men who broke his nose and stole $600 from him. He had a close encounter with an alligator in Louisiana and sweated in 119-degree heat in Texas. On Aug. 28, upon arriving in Newport Beach, he was plowed into by a drunken bicyclist. The cyclist’s handlebars slammed into his chest, he said, and caused $800 in damage to his wheelchair.
“I’ve had times when it’s been rough,” he said, “but I’ve loved every minute of it. The heat got to me in Texas. The doctors keep screaming at me to come in off the road, but I keep busting forward on my way to Blaine.”
Whittaker said he was notified he had set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance ever traveled in a wheelchair — more than 4,000 miles. He said there’s supposed to be some kind of official record ceremony when he makes it to Blaine, by which time he will have traveled more than 5,000 miles.
He said he’s had a couple of seizures, and his heart has stopped on three separate occasions, but each time his onboard defibrillator shocked him with 643 volts of electricity and sent out a distress signal to paramedics. At the present time, he said he’s taking a couple of weeks to recuperate before resuming his journey.
And everywhere he goes, Whittaker displays his huge flag. Most recently, the giant flag has been flapping in the ocean breeze in Newport Beach, Calif., amid waterfront estates, white yachts and blue harbor vistas, according to the Orange County Register.
“Wherever anybody lets me put it up, that’s where I put it up,” he said.
Whittaker said he’s not sure what he’ll do once he reaches his destination, but he plans to return to California to fly his flag at two new veterans homes being opened by the California Department of Veterans Affairs, one in November and the other in December.
Local News
Related Photos
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David Whittaker navigates the streets of Valdosta as he heads to the Veterans Administration clinic to get a prescription filled in this file photo earlier this year. Whittaker is driving his wheelchair across the country to bring awareness to homeless veterans.
Discussion
Wheelchair road warrior reaches California
David Whittaker still ‘busting forward’ to help homeless veterans
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