Category: Southern Route SitReps

Today was a picture perfect day to ride, azure blue skies, white fluffy clouds, shirt sleeve temperatures and wild flowers galore????????????????!

The day began at the Odessa, TX American Legion Post 430 with a delicious breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy. Yum – Yum!

MIA daughter “Hoops” introduced KIA son that she met on the internet. In the attached video he explains who is father and why he has a destroyer named after him:

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Donald G. Cook, P.O.W., died in captivity in South Vietnam, Saigon. His son W. Thomas Cook is the man speaking, accompanied by his son, Donald G. Cook and daughter Cleo Cook. Thank you for sharing your personal family experience.

Why we ride!

We went to bed worrying about a tornado warning but when we woke, the storm had crossed our path and moved further north. Made for beautiful day with only puddles visible.

We rode a short ten miles to the Permian Basin Memorial, a beautiful Vietnam Memorial. Southern route honor guard coordinator has gone above and beyond. He had custom vests made, and had the military patches sewn on, to represent all the military branches. He also included white gloves, another symbol of respect. Check out how how nice they look in these photos. Thank you Chaplain Bill, you rock!!!!

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We lunched in Colorado City at the the Rail Head City building. The Sweetwater Municipal Band performed live music. One of my favorite was the playing of the theme song for each military branch. Makes me cry, every time!

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Many riders ended the day with a massage at the Dubiski Career High School, including me. The perfect ending to a beautiful day. This is my sixth year on the run and nobody ever told me about this secret massage section. Thanks Roadrunner for cluing me in!

Yeah! hooray! We have an Ambassador’s report. Took a little technological maneuvering but we did it!

“Today Ambassadors were honored to visit the WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Tx. In 1942 women answered the call of their country & joined the Women Air Force Service Pilots. They trained male pilots in flying high powered pursuits & bomber aircraft. Today there are 36 surviving women ranging in age 96 to 103.”

“The Ambassadors, with humility & the greatest honor, dedicated RFTW Memorial Wreaths to 2 Medal Of Honor recipients in Odessa, Texas.
Alfred Wilson, Corporal, Marine, in action against hostile forces in Vietnam gallantly gave his life for his country. His courage, valor & selfless devotion to duty upheld the highest traditions of the U.S. Marines.
Marvin Young, Staff Sargent, Army, distinguished himself at the cost of his life in Vietnam, while serving as a squad leader reflecting great credit to his unit & the U.S. Army.
Let us never forget.”

In closing:

“The soldier is the Army. No Army is better than its soldiers. The soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country.” General George S. Patton

We ride for those who can’t.

My day began very early this morning. My husband, “Doc” is a Road Guard in Training “RGIT”. They had a team meeting at 5:15 am in the hotel parking lot. I admire and respect the road guards, first off because they are very skilled riders (or crazy) jury might still be out on that one, secondly, they work so dang hard, all day long.

I shot this short video of the road guards pulling out of the hotel parking lot to position road guards to guide riders to the breakfast/morning staging location.

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Rider’s enjoyed a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon and sausage, provided by American Legion Post 10 of Las Cruces, NM.

After breakfast we headed over to the Las Cruces Veterans Memorial Park. This year we enjoyed a police escort, a change from last year. I think they realized it was easier to join us, hehehe, don’t quote me on that. Watching the road guards work in conjunction with the police department was poetry in action.

The park was a short four miles from the legion post but it was through Las Cruces.The road guards and police officers did what is called a “bump and run”. Meaning the motor officers with their lights flashing would secure an intersection and then once a road guard was available, they would “bump” the officer to free him/her up to go secure the next intersection. It was fun to watch them “bump and run” through the intersections as we traveled to the park.

Speaking of road guards, one very special road guard has 41 adopted nieces and nephews following his trip across the country with Run for the Wall. They call him “Uncle Joker” he is known to southern route riders as “Joker”. His sister’s 4th grade class from The First Baptist Church School, known as the patriots of Shreveport, LA. are following “Uncle Joker”, through the tracking device he has on his bike. The teacher is sharing, photos from the RFTW Facebook page and Instagram of the events through out the day. She is also reading the daily sit-rep to the class. A huge shout out to the Patriots of Shreveport! Pins and stickers are on the way!

To finish today’s focus on the road guards I have one other collage of road guard/LEO liaison “Stonewall” receiving the first ever “KMA” pin. What it was awarded for, we do not know, perhaps “Bugs” or “Stonewall” will tell all. The other photo is of “Chrome” & “Wildcat” preparing to blast the 15/5 minute warning. Upon hearing the blast, riders better be at their bikes, gearing up, because the pack is leaving.

A huge thank you to all of the Southern Route road guards. I’d name you all individually but I left the list in my tour pack. Just know, the riders love you and appreciate you❤️❤️????????????

The visit to the Veterans Park was amazing! I had a very special tour guide today. “Gump” whom I mentioned last night hung back and showed me around the Bataan Death march monument. Gump grew up in Las Cruces, so he knows a lot about it. How can you have a more meaningful experience of a POW monument than when walking and talking with a repatriated POW?

This is what I learned, in a nut shell:

April 9, 1942, we surrendered to the Japanese which began the seven day, sixty-five mile Bataan Death March. 70,000 started the march, of those 70,000, 1,000 Americans and possibly 15,000 Filipinos died before reaching Camp O’Donnell. New Mexico had the highest per capita Japanese P.O.W. population in the nation.

I asked Gump;s permission to take his picture with the monument. Not something you see everyday. A repatriated P.O.W. and a monument to his home state’s P.O.W.s. You’ll see in the photo, footprints in the clay. The footprints coincide with the soldiers from New Mexico. A very moving tribute to the sacrifice they made.

It was an honor to tour the Bataan Death March monument with Gump. An experience I will not forget. Thank you Gump for sharing your heart, compassion and understanding of the plight of POWs, with me today. Love ya! ❤️

From the Veterans Park we rode 77 miles, and crossed into Texas, where the trucks are BIG and dirty! A big shout out to all the cowboy hat wearing, flag waving Texans that lined the streets to cheer us on our way.

The second leg of the afternoon was very hot, riders did as they were told and drank a lot of water and gatorade.

We ended the night at the Odessa Crossroads Fellowship Church. They lay out the best meal ever! Sweet Tea, fried cat fish, chicken, corn bread, beans. What more could a hot hungry rider ask for??? Thank you “Mojo” & “Wicked” for arranging for the great hospitality in Odessa.

Working on getting Ambassador and Outreach reports. Might do a photo dump of all three days events.

Since we are near Chris Kyle’s home, we’ll end tonight’s sit-rep with a quote from Chris:

“It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don’t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn’t save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I’m not naive, and I don’t romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.”

Chris Kyle

Thank you for reading and God Bless America!

Please excuse grammar and spelling, too tired to care.

So much happened today, it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s start at the beginning… the stagers are responsible for staging us in platoons so we can roll out in an orderly manner. It’s a thankless job, riders tend to grumble when the stagers don’t get things perfect. The staging team like all the other RFTW teams are volunteers and work hard all year. This year our stage leads are Joe Erychleb and Steve “Hard Rock” Powell.

They decided they wanted really good signs this year. So they thought and thought and decided pizza pans with reflective tape would make great platoons staging signs. So they made 14 sets of signs for all the platoons. Joe made the top, pizza sign and Steve made the poles. Let me tell you, they are large and visible it makes staging easy for the riders when we come around the corner. We are lucky to have such dedicated volunteers. A big shout out to the entire staging team. Thank you for your dedicated service to all the riders.

As always, Marana, AZ welcomes the riders with open arms. The Golden Ranch Fire Fighters Pipes and Drums, Local 3832 presented the colors. After the colors were presented, Amber Simons O’Neill sang Hallelujah, a beautiful tribute to military, written by Sailor Jerri. It’s a beautiful song. Enjoy the video.

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Now, for one of the more emotional experiences I’ve had in six years, I’ve been on the run. If I ever needed a reminder that there is a God who knows and cares, today was it.

As we were preparing to leave Marana for Wilcox, Gump the Missing Man coordinator came up and told me, “as the six pack, APL, it’s your job to fill in if someone falls out of the missing man formation. I thought oh, okay, glad I was told before too many days went by, no biggie, I can do that.

Thirty minutes after Gump mentioned this responsibility to me, I hear over the radio, “Kristine, Kristine, missing man has fallen out, we need you up here now”. I quickly tap out of my platoon, zip on up to the missing man formation, (only going 5 over the speed limit), of course. I tap in and take the spot that was vacated.

If you’ve ever ridden in the missing man formation, you know how emotional it can be. Well today, once I settled into the spot, I began to think about my day and how it all went down. When I walked out to staging today, Radar shared with me a poem his daughter, Sydney Ley, wrote about the missing man. Very insightful and beautiful.

“Missing Man.
Those two words echo in my mind and in the wind as we ride. Nothing but the steadfast rumble of the bike beneath me and the sound of the wind rushing by.
If you’re still, you can hear their voices, calling for remembrance.
So many emotions and no words to say.
So here I sit, with the Missing Man.
In Silence, a quiet prayer.
To all the Missing Men and Women, who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their Country, for all their Brothers and Sisters to enjoy the freedom so heavily priced…Thank you. Gone, but NEVER Forgotten!”

As Gibbs of NCIS says, “there’s no such thing as a coincidence”. It was not a coincidence that Radar chose today to share Sydney’s poem with me. It was not a coincidence that Gump, thought to mention to me that it was my job to fill-in if anyone in the missing man formation taps out. It was not a coincidence that a rider did tap out. It is also is not a coincidence that Gump is our missing man coordinator.

Let me tell you a little bit about Joe “Gump” Hudson, Repatriated POW. Gump was a Prisoner of War, March 23, 2003 – April 13, 2003. He was held captive with seven other Americans, five were released, two were not. As you can imagine, the Missing Man Formation is very near and dear to Gump’s heart. I believe that the Lord’s hand was in the sharing of the poem, and the getting the Missing Man Formation completed. I don’t have the thought process to explain all there is to the missing man formation, please google it to learn more, to understand the honor and respect it gives to our Missing in Action and Killed in Action. Thank you Gump, we love you! ❤️

I think that’s all the words I have to share tonight. It’s just too much emotion to try to put into words. God Bless our Blue star families, our Gold Star families and our active duty military through out the world.

????????????????????We ride for those who can’t.We ride together-together we ride????????????????????

In closing:

“Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.” General Robert E. Lee

Southern Route will ride out tomorrow with 340 riders. A little less than anticipated. Perhaps we’ll pick up the additional numbers at registration tomorrow.

Today there was a mandatory FNG meeting. Riders were introduced to Billie Dunlop “Bugs”, route coordinator, Bob Nelson “Cap’t America” assistant route coordinator, Vic Killion, “Big Vic” Platoon coordinator. Vic continued with the introductions of all platoon leaders.

The nurse then reminded riders to wear their completed medical form at all times and to HYDRATE – HYDRATE – HYDRATE.

The best part of the day was the unveiling of the Combat Hero Bike Build. Jed Morgan while deployed with the Marine Corps, brushed up against a pressure plate and lost both his legs and injured his arm.

As part of the ceremony, the corpsman that saved Jed’s life was flown in to be with Jed and to share this special day.

The attached video is worth the watch, what a wonderful thing, to give a veteran the gift of “wind therapy”. God Bless you Jed, we love you and honor you. ❤️❤️❤️

The final event of the day was the, all riders all routes meeting. Marines out of Barstow presented the colors. The route coordinators were introduced and shared their vision for the 2019 run.

We then broke into routes. Bugs reviewed basic safety information and introduced team leaders who shared their specific area of responsibility. We then broke into platoons for further briefing.

Staging begins very early tomorrow morning. Routes will begin leaving the parking lot at 7:45 am.

In closing:
“My responsibility, our responsibility as lucky Americans, is to try to give back to this country as much as it has given us, as we continue our American journey together.” GEN Colin Powell