Weighed down by a 25-pound pack, Dylan Woollard, a finance and humanities honors senior, walked 135 miles to memorialize the 135 lives lost daily to suicide in 2023.
Beginning his journey at the UT Tower on Jan. 3, Woollard rucked to the Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas, and back by Jan. 11. Woollard drew inspiration from the army, where ruck refers to walking with a weighted pack as a test of strength and servitude. He began each day with a video testimonial, urging people to contact their loved ones, before electing to stay silent for his 17-mile walk.
“I’ve seen how mental illness has affected our communities and I felt like I wasn’t doing enough,” Woollard said. “These sorts of problems thrive in isolation. I wanted to make some noise and hopefully convince at least just one person to reach out to a struggling friend.”
Woollard’s twofold campaign consisted of sharing his message on social media and raising money for National Alliance on Mental Illness Texas, a nonprofit educating and supporting individuals with mental illness, and Stop Soldier Suicide, a national nonprofit focused on suicide prevention among veterans and service members.
Carson Domey, a government senior who is Woollard’s friend and a mental health advocate on campus, helped set up a website with a donation goal of $13,500. Domey said that when taking on a challenge like this, a support system proves important.
“Do(ing) something as wild as this is such an opportunity to turn awareness into action,” Domey said. “I encouraged him to not just do the ruck, but also to raise the money. It’s one of those things where people see something as admirable as that and want to be a part of the cause in some capacity.”
Each day, economics senior Rhys Davey drove Woollard to and from designated checkpoints so he could spend the night in his own home. Davey said he remembers pulling up on day two, around mile 16.5, and Woollard was grinning ear to ear when he saw him.
“It was obviously very difficult, but he did it,” Davey said. “(He had) an extremely powerful motivation. That alone was enough to bring him through that much silence and hardship on his body.”
Woollard documented spectacular sunrises and the Central Texas landscape in his Instagram videos while facing lost toenails and the sweltering Texas heat, even in early January.
“I have a lot of friends who will never be able to walk the face of the earth again, and who miss out on some of the beautiful views that I got to see while I was out there,” Woollard said. “I knew that if they had been there walking with me, they wouldn’t have wanted me to stop, and so I wasn’t going to either.”
Woollard will graduate this semester and enter the army as a second lieutenant and said he hopes his story will encourage people, especially soldiers, to reach out for help.
“You don’t need to walk 100 miles to make a difference,” Woollard said.“What I did was cool and all, but people just need to pick up the phone. Love is like a discipline. It takes a lot of work to care for each other but we get to do it.”
