 I'm Brian Buckwalder with DAV, and I'm joined by Keith Waldrip, a Marine Corps veteran DAV member, DAV Patriot Boot Camp alum, and the COO of Asymmetric Solutions, a private special operations training company. We're talking today because Keith, you've organized the recon radar remembrance ride coming up on September 9th and 10th to honor the 201 fallen Marines from the reconnaissance and radar communities. DAV is a co-presenter of this event, partnering with your company, Asymmetric Solutions, the Marine Raider Foundation, and the Reconnaissance Foundation. Keith, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Thanks for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. Yes, so tell me a little bit more just about this event and what we can expect. This event was kind of twofold. It was one, both communities pride themselves on being silent professionals. They pride themselves on the public, not being, making a bunch of movies and talking about being special operations and all the high-speed stuff that they do behind the scenes. That's ultimately the culture of both of them, quiet professionals. Nobody cares what you're doing. You're asking to be a part of something that nobody's gonna know what you're doing. However, the families that ultimately sacrifice whenever one of us doesn't make it back, that's exactly what they, their culture is as well. They don't say, well, my husband did this, my son did this, my whatever, that they maintain that quiet professionalism as well. So this event was a way to kind of an awareness on one front for the population to realize like this is a tiny, tiny group, subcategory Marines, approximately 700 and some change of the Raiders and same goes for the recon force, recon community that are doing a lot of strategic operations to keep everybody safe and keep the large scale conflicts at bay for the most part. So a ride like this with a motorcycle representing every single KIA is a huge statement and a physical representation of the sacrifices that have been made by these two tiny communities. When you think about the numbers, I just told you, communities that are approximately 700 and some change in each of them and then you're looking at 200 plus KIA from those small communities. That's a lot of guys that have paid the price. Secondly, it is a way to keep the two communities tied together. Like I said, whenever we initially sat down and talked about this, the recon foundation, the Raider Foundation have never worked together on anything. They've been completely segregated and separate. So getting these two communities to come together and support each other on an event like this is huge. You know, the DAV and their piece in this, they've never worked with the recon foundation or the Raider Foundation. So now this is the very first time they've worked with these particular groups, which is huge as well. And we're extremely grateful for DAV's contribution to helping this event go and helping people be made aware of these families and these guys. What do you need? What are you looking for still? Yeah, so this is the first year we've done this. And again, we talked about this for a couple of years of just trying to, you know, the company we got, we continue, we're a training company like you mentioned at the beginning and we work with the active duty guys on a regular basis. And for years, we talked about trying to put something together to give back and again, create another event that's for the Gold Star family. So this being the first one, we've had a really good response to it but any type of donation helps, you know, we try to do as much as we can to plus up the amounts to get distributed out to the Gold Star families in the backside of this but fuel sponsors, food sponsors, rider sponsorships, stuff like that that the rider sponsorships specifically are something that would aid in getting representation out there because obviously being an East Coast event, we'd hate for people not to be able to come out and ride for their, you know, Gold Star, you know, for their fallen loved ones in the capacity, you know, if it's an uncle or a dad or a brother that lives in Missouri and he just don't have the money to make it out there to do the ride but would do the ride if he did, those rider sponsorships take care of that stuff. Walk me through kind of just briefly what this ride's gonna look like. Plan is 07 arrival at New River Harley-Davidson just outside the gates of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Here's our consolidation point. I'd like to say, you know, while we're here thanks to New River Harley-Davidson for their support on this and all the help that they put out for it. Again, they're hosting us for the takeoff. They're also providing a bunch of stuff on kickoff day. They've been fantastic on promoting the event and that. So we're starting there at New River. 07 showtime, they'll be issued a KIA bracelet specific to the fallen raider or recon marine that they're representing. They'll wear that bracelet for the remainder of the ride. They'll receive their R4 shirt and armband that they'll wear that shows that they are one of the registered riders riding for an actual KIA. And then 09, we plan on being kickstands up and pulling out of New River Harley-Davidson. Once we're driving, we're heading through a pretty easy route, pretty straightforward route. We're looking to link up with the Arlington PD no later than 1700. They're going to escort us up and around the cemetery area around the Iwo Jima Monument, representing all the fallen Marines from that time period. They'll escort us back out and then we'll head back down to the Marine Corps Museum area. Fortunately on day two, we're not restrained by having to make a hard timeline to link up with Arlington PD. So it should be a little more laid back. We'll be able to make more frequent gas stops and spend a little more time making it more of a comfortable ride on the way back. Right now we're de-conflicting with a handful of Gold Star family members that are in the vicinity of the route on the way back to try to stop at their locations if they're available. We're trying to make it back to Wilmington to Eagles Dare, which is our in location, which is actually a radar, a former radar owned restaurant and bar that has donated their location and closed it off to the public for our return. There the Gold Star family members that have congregated waiting for our return will be at that location. The riders that are wearing the bracelets that represent the particular family members that they are there for at that point will present those bracelets to those family members so they have it as a token of remembrance from this ride. Who are you riding for? Chris Antonick, a former teammate of mine. Chris was a good friend, a teammate for several years. He unfortunately lost his life in Afghanistan. We were in the same team. I was not on the mission in which he was killed, but I was on that deployment with him. Good for him. Chris was one of those guys that everybody likes. He was one of those Rockstar operators that no matter what he did, it always came out like glitters and rainbow perfectly. And you know, couldn't really mess anything up and just a good human being across the board, you know what I mean? Just a final takeaway from this ride is what do you want people to know about Marine Special Operations? Amongst the communities, there's no greater honor than a warrior's death, right? I mean, when you die the way, you know, these guys die, you're never forgotten in your community. You're never forgotten by your brother and you're never forgotten obviously by your families. But there's no recognition being sought for that. It's the guys find honor in the fact that they know that their brothers will never forget them and know what they did and what they sacrificed. This is a way to kind of, again, pat those guys on the back and highlight to the rest of the population. Not all the time, but you know, just one time and then we're trying to make this thing an annual event one time a year to say, hey, just a reminder that the reason why you lay sound in your bed and sleep quietly at night is because guys like this are out doing what's necessary to allow you to have those freedoms. And that's the recon Raider Remembrance Ride. It's coming up on September 9th and 10th to honor 201 fallen Marines from the reconnaissance and Raider communities. It's being put on by Asymmetric Solutions, DAV, the Marine Raider Foundation and the Reconnaissance Foundation. So, Keith, thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing what this event's all about. And for people interested in learning more, we're gonna be putting the link down in the description below that you can follow to get involved or just to follow along for the ride.