A local Packers fan scored free tickets to Sunday’s NFC Championship because he’s a veteran

When Port Orchard’s Wendell Marler sees a soldier in uniform, he always thanks them for their service. When a soldier was in line in front of him at the grocery store, he bought his chicken dinner. And two years ago, Wendell started a non-profit called Fishing With Heroes.

“We take active duty soldiers, veterans and First Responders fishing,” Wendell said.

Wendell has a full-time job, but every Saturday and Sunday he volunteers his time, taking soldiers and veterans out on his private lake. He buys them their own fishing pole and tackle box to take home, he barbecues lunch, he cleans and packages the fish they catch and sends them home with a bag of loot.

“It kind of turned into something I think is really needed. Giving these guys a day where they don’t have to worry about anything else. All they have to do is show up and I take care of everything. Then they have someone to talk to who they don’t know so they can just get stuff off their chest. A lot of them [have PTSD and] are like, ‘I’m not going to see a psychiatrist. I’m a big, burly man!’ I’m not attached to no doctors, or nothing like that, so they seem to not have a problem talking to me about stuff that’s bothering them. They get stuff off their chest and feel a whole lot better at the end of the day. Recreational therapy is what we started referring to it as.”

So when a family friend said she was selling two tickets to this weekend’s NFC Championship game, Wendell jumped at the chance to give them to a veteran.

“I’d love to go. But to me, giving back to these guys is way more important than me sitting in the stadium.”

So Wendell contacted me, and asked if we could give the tickets away to a local hero. And a couple hours after his email, I got an email from an Everett woman who said her office had started a GoFundMe page to send their co-worker Kevin to the game.

“We love him! He’s a great worker, a great family man. Really wanting to go to the game,” said Barbara Meyer, Kevin Michaud’s coworker at Everett’s Providence Medical Center’s maternal fetal medicine.

She also mentioned he was a veteran. Perfect! I could match up Kevin and Wendell! But then Barbara told me this:

“We’re all Seahawks fans except for Kevin who is a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan.”

A Packers fan!? Kevin is an ultrasound tech, at Providence, who works with high risk babies. He works with all female patients and an all-female staff who constantly needle him over his football loyalty.

“Every Monday we come in with our Seahawk stories and here’s Kevin having to listen to all that,” Barbara said. “We definitely are a Seahawks family here in maternal fetal medicine and Kevin is sort of stuck by himself.”

But Kevin didserve in the military.

“I was a Gunner’s Mate in the NAVY back in ’94 to ’98,” Kevin said when I called him to tell him about the tickets.

So Wendell decided to go ahead and give him the tickets.

“Every single person I’ve told that I was doing this today have all given me grief! But I come back with, you know, he sacrificed part of his life to defend our country and our freedom, so to me it’s worth it.”

Kevin says he was born a Packers fan, he can’t help it.

“I live in Everett now, I grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.”

And he’s thrilled that he’s able to go to the game.

“It is fantastic, I can’t believe it. It’s like a dream come true for me, really.”

“I did talk to him on the phone, he seems like a real nice guy,” Wendell said. “He’s completely excited which makes me excited. The seats are great, they’re 100 level seats.”

But despite his Packers loyalty, Kevin says if the Seahawks go to the Super Bowl he has no problem rooting them on.

As for Fishing With Heroes, Wendell mostly pays for it out of his own pocket, but he is
taking donations.