West Point Cadet Ava Critcher is pinned by Army Maj. Samantha Turner with the Cross of the Four Days Marches after completing a 100-mile course in Nijmegen, Netherlands on July 18, 2025. (Lydia Gordon/Stars and Stripes)
West Point cadet Ava Critcher spent two days climbing rolling hills in Luxembourg, putting 50 miles behind her one step at a time during last month’s Marche Internationale de Diekirch.
When exhaustion set in, the 21-year-old entering her final year at the U.S. Military Academy tapped into a sense of hard-won fortitude to push her way to the finish line.
“Just keep putting one foot in front of the other,” she told herself.
The advice carried Critcher to the finish line of the grueling two-day endurance march, making her one of only two cadets from her group to complete the event.
The achievement brought her full circle from where she was less than two years earlier, when a sporting accident left her temporarily paralyzed and fearing she may never walk again.
A former flyer on the academy’s cheerleading squad, Critcher was suddenly injured during a routine practice her sophomore year when she came down awkwardly from a stunt.
West Point Cadet Ava Critcher poses at the finish line of the Marche Internationale de Diekirch after completing a two-day, 50 mile total military marching course on May 31, 2026. (Courtesy Photo)
West Point Cadets Audrey Whitfield, left, and Ava Critcher, right, take a photo on the second day course of the Marche Internationale de Diekirch in Luxembourg on May 31, 2026. (Courtesy Photo)
“My feet hit my head going at a really fast speed. … I temporarily lost feeling in the lower half of my body,” she said. “The first immediate thought was I’m not going to be able to walk.”
The scare also left her wondering whether she would earn her gold lieutenant bars as the extreme swelling in her back had led to temporary paralysis in her legs.
It took Critcher three months to fully regain feeling and clearance to return to activity at the academy, but the loneliness of recovery and initial fear still lingered.
The following summer, Critcher was selected to represent West Point at the De 4 Daagse in Nijmegen, Netherlands, a 100-mile trek recognized as the world’s largest organized multi-day walking event.
In July 2025, she traveled to Europe to join a 17-member international military team led by Samantha Turner, a West Point graduate and then-major in the Army Reserve who sponsored three cadets for the event.
“When I do Nijmegen with cadets, I normally sit down and talk to them about how (it) is an opportunity to watch and observe the type of leader you want to be and the type of leader you don’t want to be when the going gets tough,” Turner said.
Over the course of the march, Turner became more than a team leader for Critcher. She became a mentor.
After months spent wondering what her future would hold, Critcher found support among fellow marchers and spectators, who embodied the event’s unofficial motto: “You’ll never walk alone.”
“My injury … taught me to be a lot more appreciative of my body’s ability to heal and recover,” Critcher said. “The experience in general of pushing my body to its physical limits was something that I couldn’t really take for granted anymore.”
West Point Cadet Ava Critcher poses for a U.S. Military Academy portrait. (Courtesy Photo)
Balancing the demands of her junior year, Critcher did not plan to make a habit of these long-distance challenges, though.
That changed when she returned to Germany last month for an academy program and discovered the Marche Internationale de Diekirch.
“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Critcher said. “Thought it would be a fun way to see a different country.”
On May 30, she once again laced up her boots, tackling the first day’s marathon distance alongside four other cadets.
The terrain proved demanding for Critcher, who said even Nijmegen’s famed “Day of the Seven Hills” offered little preparation for Diekirch’s relentless climbs and descents.
By the end of the first day, the field had thinned. Only Critcher and classmate Audrey Whitfield remained from their original group, and for the first time, Critcher questioned whether she wanted to continue.
In that moment of doubt, she turned to Turner for motivation.
“I personally think that Diekirch is harder than Nijmegen,” Turner said. “I saw her grit and toughness when we walked 100 miles together, so I was absolutely positive she could … finish the march.”
Through her network of international marchers, Turner helped connect Critcher and Whitfield with a team for the second day, and the pair completed all 50 miles.
“The only thing that could carry me through Diekirch was the mental strength,” Critcher said. “I think that was probably more rewarding in that aspect.”
With her final year as a cadet approaching, Critcher is already looking ahead to commissioning as an Army officer and eventually attending medical school.
And her endurance journey is still unfolding. A Belgian veteran she met through a marching group connected by Turner invited her to participate in an international marching league. The league is a nonprofit that promotes endurance marches around the world and allows participants to track completed events with a walking “passport.”
After once fearing she might never walk again, it turns out there are plenty of miles left to walk.
