Naval Academy alums rides across US for Veterans' causes

The plan is to make it across the country in 44 stops, while along the way garnering even more pledges of support for veterans' causes, and, around here, dodging wildfires.

A group of bicyclists stayed overnight in Coulee Dam and Grand Coulee Saturday, leaving early Sunday morning on day five of their trek that started at the naval airbase on Whidbey Island.

Their "Navy '83 Ride Across America" will get them to their Naval Academy class of 1983 reunion in Annapolis, Maryland in October.

Allan Mangan, a retired Marine colonel and avid cyclist, entertains a (possible) fantasy about the football game halftime that day, as the group gets introduced as the winners who peddled 3,400 miles to raise a lot of money for veterans.

Those miles included getting here over the North Cascades highway, which closed because of wildfires again after they passed. Some of their group reported seeing the flames close to the road.

They'll need to re-assess their route to today's destination in Cheney as they get closer, they're told, due to wildfires around Medical Lake that have closed many roads over the last week.

As of Sunday morning, the amount of money raised already stood at $220,000, donated via pledges to the cyclists through their network of friends, social media, and articles like this one.

Scott Watson has raised as much of that as everybody else combined, according to John Hults, who had the original idea for the ride. Watson's favorite cause gets veterans and their spouses to a Christian ministry in Alaska that teaches them "how to be married again," after a long deployment. Operation Heal Our Patriots started 10 years ago "in response to the epidemic of broken marriages among military families," states the riders' support website at http://www.navy-cycling.com/take-action, where anyone can donate.

Other causes include a Challenged Athletes Foundation/Operation Rebound, the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Warrior Foundation - 20 in all, plus the UNSA Alumni Foundation, to which each rider paid $1,983 to be part of the ride.

Their goal is to raise $1,983,000.

Some 75 are signed up for the ride, but not necessarily every leg of it. A hardcore group of 17 riders plans to make the entire journey. About 26 of them (mean average age: 61) joined the pre-ride debriefing at 8 a.m. Sunday, ready to start with 22 push-ups, their daily ritual.

That's the number, according to a 2016 Veterans Administration study, of those active duty servicemembers, veterans and military family members, combined, had been killing themselves every day. A follow-up has shown that number has since dropped to 17, Mangan said.

The group planned to stop to rest in Wilbur, take lunch at the railroad museum west of Reardan and finish the day in Cheney.

Video of their meeting is available in this story online at grandcoulee.com