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President’s Message – December 2019

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to everyone this holiday season.

Connie and I, and the Board of Directors wish you all the very best during this holiday season and a very happy New Year.

We are looking forward to the 2020 Run For The Wall and working hard to make the 32nd RFTW the safest and most memorable mission for all our riders.

The planning process has produced several changes on all the routes including the first operational mission of our new Sandbox Route. Once again, I urge all riders to stay current by reading the monthly messages your Route Coordinators post on the website and RFTW Facebook. Moreover, I suggest that our new riders read the article “Ten Days in May” in the New Participant website hub. This day-by-day story of what happens on our 10-day mission will answer many, if not all, of your questions.It is this time of the year that we start getting inquiries about when the hotel list will be available. These lists much be checked for accuracy and other details before we publish them. Most of that has been completed and the Hotel Lists will be published at midnight January 1, 2020 on the website under each route hub. All the routes have three or more hotels at each overnight stop while four hotels will be available in Ontario and Arlington. So, there’s ample room for everyone who wants to use these hotels. We only ask you be polite and patient with the clerks who are trying to help you. Typically, we hear only a few complaints from hotels when some of our folks choose to lose their tempers which lets us know that the vast majority of folks are civil. Please help us on this issue because hotels who are confronted with bad attitudes respond by refusing to block rooms for us the following year or raise prices so high we have to go elsewhere. Remember: You always have the freedom to use other hotels at the overnight stops.

We are keeping an open line of communications with the American Veterans, better known as AMVETS, and their planning process for a new demonstration in Washington. They have secured a permit from the National Park Service for a rally from May 22-24, 2020. The AMVET demonstration will be known as “Rolling to Remember.” AMVET Executive Director Joe Chenelly told me the 2020 events will be held “to make the nation, especially our voters, aware of what is happening , what isn’t happening and what needs to happen to address our POWs, our MIAs, and our veterans and active-duty service members who are dying by suicide.”

Joe also told me that this will be a mission and not a party. RFTW has pledged to participate in the demonstration on Sunday and help where we can. I will continue to inform our riders of the details in these messages over the next few months.

Once again thank you all for making our mission – your mission.

148 days until May 1

Respectfully submitted,
Les “Easy” Williams, President
Run for the Wall Board of Directors

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