Mission of mercy
Riders escort goods for wounded warriors

ABOVE: Corey Allen waits on his motorcycle at the American Legion in Grants on Monday morning. Allen was one of about a dozen that left for the veterans hospital in San Antonio, Texas on Monday morning to deliver gifts to those that have served in the current wars. BELOW:Trudy Dean holds her dog Shorty prior to leaving on Monday at the Grants American Legion. About a dozen riders left for the veterans hospital in San Antonio, Texas on Monday morning to deliver gifts to those that have served in the current wars. — © 2008 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — The whole thing started four years ago with four guys from Arizona, some motorcycles and an sense of brotherhood.

Yesterday, 10 men and women — and two dogs — set out from Grants to join other groups of American Legion Riders in an escort for a tractor-trailer of necessities and small luxuries to soldiers in Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

The small convoy of Harley-Davidsons, Gold Wings, pickups and trailers left the New Mexico American Legion Chapter 6, Post 80 club house to meet up with other Legion Riders chapters in Albuquerque and load the waiting tractor-trailer to take the 2008 Operation Wounded Warrior on the road south.

The Legion’s Operation Wounded Warrior takes care of soldiers who have been injured in war zones and end up in the Brooke center. Some of the men and women taken to military hospitals from war zones arrive with nothing more than the nightgown they are wearing and their dog tags, said New Mexico Legion Riders State President Aaron Dean.

“People don’t realize that the military doesn’t take care of them. They have to buy their own uniforms and everything,” Dean said. Coming in as emergency patients, soldiers leave everything behind, including clothes and underwear.

All riders are veterans; they know the things that make a difference when coming back or being in a treatment unit, sometimes with a legacy that has already started to change a life.

Jose Cordova Munoz, a former sergeant who saw action in Vietnam, said when he was in a hospital just a letter from a stranger, someone touching him, was a great gift.

Munoz, who lives in Gallup but belongs to the Grants Chapter of the Riders because there is no chapter in Gallup, said he had a heart attack on a Riders run for 9/11 in July and spent the last part of the ride in a hospital in Phoenix. He couldn’t make this run.

Instead, he worked in the Gallup community to collect cash and items no one would think to donate. He also let the community know how they can help the sons and daughters injured in action.

The hidden thing about the Operation is the chain of recognition. No one seems to want to take credit. Dean, who said the state club raised $65,000, wanted to make sure Munoz, the lone rider working in Gallup, got recognized for the work he has done so far — approaching merchants and individuals, getting flyers out, educating.

Munoz did not want any credit; he said to make sure that Gurley Motor Company, JC Penney, Bushwhacker Salon, Ken Riege and the many others who helped got the credit for donating everything from hygiene products to ball-point pens to toothbrushes and printed flyers.

But the biggest donator Munoz found was a man in Phoenix who donated $20. VFW Post 8015 Men’s Auxiliary member Richard Burris collects cans. Munoz said that the $20 Burris gave was huge to him, but that he could never join the military because of a medical condition so he helped the way he could.

In Grants, Dean said the community made the trailer of different types of goods, including hand-made quilts.

American Legion Riders, now coming from several states and around 100 New Mexicans strong, will spend two days visiting soldiers in the hospital and letting them know that the Legion is there when they get out of the service as well as for them now.

Operation Wounded Warrior is a registered nonprofit corporation. Dean said 100 percent of donations, cash or goods, go to help the soldiers in treatment. Riders pay their own gas, hotels and food, except for a barbecue to be held for them by a private contributor.

The tractor-trailer, gas and driver were donated by a German company, Dean said. Nobody gets paid for anything, the entire Operation is funded by donations, it has grown larger every year. It started with four guys taking things to their brothers and sisters just a few years ago.

Donations to soldiers in the medical center is phase one of the operation. Next, Dean said, the riders begin donations to veterans’ homes and care facilities.

Anyone can help. The ride is the first week in October and open to vets, Legion Riders and the riders’ women’s and men’s auxiliaries. Hand-made goods, cash for requested items, pens, puzzles, socks, personal letters, sweatshirts and pants — just about anything that people use to cure boredom, or keep warm — are needed.

Information: Aaron Dean at work, 285-5772.

To help develop a Gallup Legion Post: Jose Munoz,
863-9035.