Jarrod Turner will have been running for eight days, covering 911 miles while wearing a 22-pound weighted flak jacket.

The Georgia Perimeter College physical education major and U.S. Army veteran is on a mission to bring attention to veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injury and are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

On Sunday, April 26, Turner and 12 fellow veterans will arrive in Atlanta. The group, which has dubbed themselves “Shepherd’s Men,” will be finishing a grueling 911-mile journey that started at New York City’s Ground Zero site on April 19.

The men are running to benefit the SHARE Military Initiative, an Atlanta’s Shepherd Spinal Center comprehensive rehabilitation program that focuses on assessment and treatment for service men and women who have sustained a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury and PTSD from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. The group hopes to raise $250,000 for the program.

Turner served in the U.S. Army for 10 years; eight of those years were spent as a combat medic. During Turner’s second tour of duty in Iraq, he was severely injured during a mortar attack and sustained a traumatic brain injury as well as other injuries. Since then, Turner says he grappled with multiple physical and psychological issues until he attended the SHARE program.

“The Shepherd Center basically saved my life,” Turner told Mark Eister, GPC’s director of Military Outreach.

Turner has attended GPC intermittently since 2008 and currently is taking three online courses.

You can follow the men and their run by going to http://www.shepherdsmen.com/