Healing through Paddling
10th Annual Mt. Vernon to Marietta, 160-Mile Veterans and First Responders Paddle
Sun, Jun 07
|Mount Vernon, Ohio to Marietta, Ohio
10th Annual Paddle for Heroes – 2026 Memorial Paddle Honoring 1st Lieutenant Charles L. Wilkins & PFC Ryan A. Martin
Time & Location
Jun 07, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT – Jun 12, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT
Mount Vernon, Ohio to Marietta, Ohio, Mt Vernon, OH 43050, USA
Guests
About the event
The 10th Annual Paddle for Heroes, Mt. Vernon, Ohio to Marietta, Ohio 160-Mile – 2026 Memorial Paddle, will be dedicated in honor of:
1st Lieutenant Charles L. Wilkins & PFC Ryan A. Martin.
—Both killed in action on August 20, 2004, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
On August 20th, 2004, with temperatures rising above 95 degrees, soldiers of A Company, 216th Engineer Battalion, from Chillicothe, Ohio, were concluding a long day of route-clearance operations. Operating in the notoriously dangerous region of Samarra—often referred to as “the hot entry point to Fallujah”—their mission was abruptly cut short. A sudden blast struck the convoy’s lead Humvee, claiming the lives of two dedicated soldiers: 1LT Charles Wilkins and PFC Ryan Martin.