BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 Chris Kaag spent years delivering one message: No excuses. Just move.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a really sad day today for our entire veterans community, as we lost one of our warriors who just epitomizes that warrior ethos, that warrior spirit, that ability to take a really difficult situation and never quit,\u201d said Jay Ostrich, director of Berks County Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n
Kaag served in the Marine Corps. A rare disease called AMN eventually limited his movement. But in 2007, he founded the IM ABLE Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a great guy. I\u2019ve seen many, many posts in Facebook about him of the great work he did. He\u2019s very motivational, very inspiring, did a great job here in our community,\u201d said Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera.<\/p>\n
Kaag\u2019s organization gave people with disabilities ways to move, from adaptive fitness classes and bicycles to vehicles equipped for veterans in wheelchairs. Kaag also shared his story in a book called Don\u2019t Quit on Me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 50 years, he did a lot more than most people do in a lot longer period of time,\u201d said Berks County Commissioner Dante Santoni.<\/p>\n
Kaag leaves behind his wife, Gretchen, and their son, Carter.<\/p>\n
\u201cChris Kaag is an inspiration to all of us. Whether you\u2019ve worn the uniform or not, we can learn so much from how he lived his life,\u201d Ostrich said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, IM ABLE CEO Alex Pilkington said Kaag\u2019s courage and compassion inspired thousands and that the organization remains committed to carrying forward the mission he dedicated his life to building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 Chris Kaag spent years delivering one message: No excuses. Just move. \u201cIt\u2019s a really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,5114,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-299984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-instagram","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}