Run For The Wall Ridings Not Returning This Year

Cookeville will not be receiving a visit from the motorcyclist group Run the Wall this holiday weekend.

Visitor’s Bureau Executive Director Molly Brown said the group typically stops in on their Memorial Day tour, which was cancelled. She said they had hoped to have them this Fourth of July weekend.

“Unfortunately that was cancelled as well so we’re definitely going to have a different feel this year,” Brown said. “This will be the first time since 2013 that they have not been to Cookeville in some capacity.”

Run For The Wall is a motorcycle event that starts in L.A.  and travels across the country to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington D.C. Their mission is to “ride for those who can’t,” honoring military prisoners of war, those missing in action, and those killed in action.

Brown said the group of more than 300 riders makes stops all along their way to the east coast.

“Their mission is to stop at veteran’s hospitals and do educational things with schools all across the country as they ride across, ” Brown said.

Brown said several of the riders are also Vietnam veterans who are riding as a form of therapy for PTSD.

Brown said the group made an early call to cancel the national tour for Memorial Day, and then lacked the participation for their reunion tour. However, Brown said that they have already scheduled the group to return for Memorial Day next year and that people should mark their calendars for May 23rd, 2022.

“5 p.m. they will roll into town and we want to provide the biggest welcome we can lining the streets,” Brown said.