Marine Lance Cpl. Dale Peterson will be honored

The Tribute to Fallen Soldiers Memorial Torch Motorcycle Ride, scheduled for July 23 through Aug. 7, will include a stop in Burns on July 24.

This 14-day, 3,000 mile  cross country motorcycle ride will be escorting the Fallen Soldiers Memorial Flame from Eugene to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. As the ride procession makes its way across the country, they’ll be making scheduled stops at the homes of our fallen soldiers. These stops are what they refer to as Fallen Soldier Home Visits. At each home visit they make, they’ll present a Memorial Plaque of Distinguished Service to the surviving families to say “thank you” for their soldiers’ sacrifice and to remind each family their fallen hero will not be forgotten.

In all, the group will be making a total of 48 fallen soldier home visits while traveling through 10 different states. At the end of the ride, Sunday, Aug. 7, they’ll escort the Fallen Soldiers Memorial Flame inside the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery to formally extinguish the Memorial Flame in memory of all fallen soldiers.

On Sunday, July 24, they’ll be making a scheduled stop in Burns to honor and pay tribute to Marine Lance Cpl. Dale Peterson (KIA 04/23/2007). The one hour visit will take place at the Burns Elks Lodge where the Peterson family, including Peterson’s mother Dorothy, will be presented with the Memorial Plaque.

In addition to the Fallen Soldier Home Visit for the Peterson family, the Burns Elks Lodge will be holding an outdoor barbecue to welcome the Memorial Flame into Burns.

The procession will begin in Redmond at American Legion Post No. 44, which is where the ride group and memorial flame will spend the first night.  The ride procession will depart Redmond at 8:30 a.m. and is expected to arrive in Burns at approximately 10:45 a.m. The procession and memorial flame will depart Burns at noon and travel east via U.S. 20 to Boise, Idaho, where the procession will be honoring two additional fallen soldiers from Idaho.

Tribute to Fallen Soldiers NW would like to encourage anyone who rides to join our ride procession in Redmond to begin our day and ride into Burns to honor the Peterson family.   There’s no fee to ride and the procession is expected to be escorted by law enforcement.

Tribute to Fallen Soldiers NW is an Oregon based nonprofit organization. In the eight years since the organization was formed, it has honored more than 350 fallen soldiers.

The ride begins on Saturday, July 23, in Eugene at Valley River Center with the official lighting of the Memorial Flame at 10 a.m.

The ride will depart that location at 11 a.m. and will ride to Stayton to visit the family of Marine Lance Cpl. Ty Hart who died Jan. 14, 2016, in a helicopter crash off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. After the Hart visit, the ride procession will visit the family of Army Pfc. Nickolas Welch of Salem. The ride group will then ride to Redmond where the group and memorial flame will spend the first night.