Special Operations Veterans Honor the Fallen With Coast X Coast Motorcycle Ride
Vets
By Mac Caltrider | September 20, 2021
Looking up from the tablet in his hands, Army Special Forces veteran Joe Mooney shook his head, struggling to find the appropriate words. Despite the concealment his tattoos, beard, and sunglasses offered, the hulking former operator failed to hide the lump in his throat from the quiet group standing before him. At his feet, in section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, stood the marble headstone of his former teammate and friend Joshua Lloyd Wheeler, a member of an elite Army Special Missions Unit and the first American killed in the fight against ISIS in 2015.
“There’s no use reading this,” Mooney said, waving the tablet containing details of Wheeler’s 20-year career. “This guy was a bleep stud. He was a stud.”
The modest gathering of friends, veterans, and family members congregated around the first gravesite of a dozen special operations veterans they planned to visit in Arlington. The event marked the end of the eighth annual Ride for the Fallen — a memorial event hosted by Coast X Coast, a nonprofit dedicated to honoring fallen members of the special operations community.
https://coffeeordie.com/coast-x-coast-ride-veterans/
