But once you return to normal life, those are the same things that you need in order to function. I’ve always been a sensitive guy, and after I became wounded and gathered up what remained of my best friend in Iraq, I became even more sensitive and then I broke. I cry when I’m moved. I scream like a little kid when I get scared or surprised. I have a lot of Marine friends who are still acting tough and playing the hard, mean act, and drinking heavily. For me, I’m on the long road back to myself, and the Appalachian Trail helped me find my way.
Don’t be mistaken, I may not have walked every mile and every blaze, but what I did this summer will forever live with me as the most adventurous, most breathtaking, and by far the most emotional thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been happy and I’ve laughed so hard I peed myself. I’ve been sad and I’ve cried some pretty emotional tears. I’ve been so mad over war memories that I could have uprooted trees. I’ve been miserable from frozen shoes and water bottles, but was amazed that in single-digit temps I still managed to sweat like I was on patrol with 120 pounds of gear in 120-degree temps. I’ve lost an organ on this trail, and I still came back to see what else the trail had to offer. I’ve been lonely at times and been full of every emotion you can think of in the last six months, and not just anger! I’ve made friends on the trail that will forever remain my family for as long as God chooses to leave me here.
My walk sure didn’t cure things in six months, but it gave me even more appreciation for life—kind of like what I felt when I realized I was still alive after being hit in Fallujah. I may never be the same person I was before Iraq, but Mother Nature sure did give me a place to “take it easy” and smell the roses.
Way back in 1992, I went to Marine Corps boot camp and was told I stood ten feet tall and was bulletproof and could outrun a roadrunner. I lost that feeling a few years ago, but I can now say that feeling has returned. I can climb any mountain, ford any stream, build a fire with wet wood, and eat things that could make a billy goat puke. I feel as if I’m still on Mount Katahdin looking down saying, “Wow! Look what I did!” Feels pretty amazing. And just like earning the title and honor of being a United States Marine, you can’t take that away from me . . . ever. The trail provides.
The summer of 2013 will forever be the greatest and most grueling time of my life. I might have hurt all day long from hiking up a mountain, but when I got to a lookout and could see forever and reflect on what God has created and the people in my life that I have lost—I realized that I really needed this hike. I’m going to live my life for those that couldn’t.
CHAPTER 3
ADAM BAUTZ
US MARINE CORPS, 2004 – 2008
TRUDGING UP THE RED SANDSTONE slopes in the Nevada desert, I kept my eyes on the “AT” symbol tattooed on my guide’s right calf. Surrounding the symbol was the motto “It’s not about the miles, it’s about the smiles.” Adam Bautz’s left calf has a tattoo of a Marine walking away with a machine gun on his shoulders. The last time I’d seen him, he was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania with fellow Marine Tommy Gathman. His blank right calf had yet to earn its AT stamp. Although he cannot easily see the tats himself, their very presence helps Adam provoke conversation with his hiking clients and establish connections.
Here in the Valley of Fire northeast of Las Vegas, Adam is home. He knows it intimately, all forty-six thousand acres of it. He taught himself the area’s natural history and can share all kinds of interesting facts about the wildflowers and animals with his hiking comrades. Since 2017, Outdoor Travel Tours, Adam’s tour company, has led folks into the desert so they can fall in love with it too. “This is the most amazing place I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “It consumes me. There are arches, natural holes, and petroglyphs, and all are easily accessible. There are lizards, flowering cacti, and Gila monsters. Four thousand years ago, Native Americans roamed this very land.”
As we hiked into the dazzling Nevada desert, Adam recited the Marine machine gunner description, which he had memorized and recited countless times in his head while deployed to Iraq: “A machine gunner is to provide a heavy volume of close, continuous, accurate support of fire to suppress and destroy all enemy personnel out of small arm’s capability.” Adam had carried this knowledge on a card in his shirt pocket along with a notebook that contained everything he needed to know as a machine gunner. He could disassemble and reassemble his machine gun in three minutes. He took his job seriously.
Toward the end of Adam’s first deployment, an IED blew up a truck carrying three of his comrades, one of whom was a fellow machine gunner. “Why not me?” Adam wondered. “It so easily could have been me.” There was little time to grieve, and they had to continue going out on the next patrol. “We would come back from a patrol and there would be empty beds.” Adam constantly thought he would be next, incessantly fearing his own death. “Imagine going out every day, knowing people are trying to kill you,” he said. “That’s a horrible fucking feeling, just waiting to possibly blow up and die.”
When Adam got out of the military, certain noises and smells brought him back to the war. “I fell into a deep hole and became a fat bastard. Pair that self-image with my PTSD and it was really hard.” To cope, his mind would return to his boyhood stomping grounds on his grandfather’s sixhundred-acre wilderness property in Maine. There he had enjoyed his favorite activities of hunting, kayaking, mountain biking, and hiking. He remembered what his grandfather taught him: there is peace and hope in the natural world.
ADAM EVENTUALLY MOVED TO LAS VEGAS AND LANDED A JOB DRIVING AN armored truck for Brink’s security. In a single casino stop, he picked up $14 million, mostly money that people had lost. It was then that he realized he did not have to sacrifice happiness for a paycheck, so at his father’s suggestion, he became a desert guide for a tour company. One of the companies he worked for was Bullets and Burgers, an outfit for which he guided novices into the desert where they got to shoot machine guns. Then Adam got a phone call from a Marine brother, Tom Gathman.
In Iraq, Adam’s machine gun squad had been attached to Tom’s rifleman squad, part of the First Platoon. They had lived in the same bunkroom for seven months and quickly became friends. When Tom called to ask Adam if he wanted to quit his job as a tour guide and join him on an Appalachian Trail thru-hike the next year, Adam said, “Hell, yes.” Adam knew he wanted to travel, to experience freedom again. “As a Marine, we fought for freedom,” he said, “but I did not have it and I wanted it.”
Prior to joining the Marines, both men had a tendency to get into trouble with the law and both had pending misdemeanor charges. Enlisting in the Marines, however, cleared their records and put them on a more sustainable path. In that sense, the Corps saved their lives. “I didn’t enlist in the Marines for the country,” Adam said. “I needed direction and discipline in my life. The majority of us were kids who didn’t know what we were signing up for at the time. My mission was to stay alive and keep the others next to me alive.” There are many reasons to join the military but, perhaps surprisingly, service to your country is not always number one. According to exhaustive surveys conducted by the global-policy think tank, the RAND Corporation, which offers research and analysis to the US Armed Forces, the overwhelming majority of servicemen and servicewomen cite economic reasons for enlisting. Military service seems to be a job first and a calling second. Some are attracted to benefits like the GI Bill, and others—like Adam and Tommy—are seeking direction in their lives or merely want to get out of Dodge.
I MET ADAM AND TOMMY THE WINTER BEFORE THEY BEGAN THEIR THRU-HIKE. Tom hails from a small town in Pennsylvania, not far from my home, so I invited the men down for dinner to
