87 year old Sam Winstead, member of VFP North Carolina Triangle Chapter 157 leads the bicycle ride for peace from North Carolina to DC!
APRIL 27, Raleigh, NC – World War II Marine combat veteran Samuel Winstead is accepting applications for co-riders to join his Ride for Peace leaving Sunday April 27th from Raleigh, NC bound for Washington, DC. Riders are invited to join for all, or any part of the ride.
Mr. Winstead blazed this trail over secondary roads in North Carolina and Virginia in the Spring of 2012. In his inaugural Ride for Peace, Sam pedaled 350 miles in 7 days, from Raleigh to DC. He repeated this feat in in 2013.
Winstead, who is 88, will lead riders from the NC Capital in Raleigh at 8:00am Sunday, April 27, and make overnight stops in Henderson, NC (April 27), Blackstone, VA (April 28) Gum Spring, VA (April 29), Culpeper, VA (April 30), Middleburg, VA (May 1), Leesburg, VA (May 2) and will arrive at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC for a Rally for Peace at 2:00pm Saturday, May 3rd.
During the ride, Sam will distribute copies of Charlottesville author David Swanson’s book “War No More: The Case for Abolition.” Swanson’s book has helped launch the worldbeyondwar.org campaign.
After last year’s Ride for Peace. Sam visited Congressional offices to urge the repeal of the Authorization to Use Military Force. Congress approved the AUMF in the aftermath of 9/11, which gave the US President a blank check to make war anywhere on earth.
After Sam’s Congressional visits, he traveled to the 2013 Hiroshima Peace Forum, at the invitation of Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka. Sam has been a member of the Roxboro (NC) Rotary Club for 35 years. Speaking at the Peace Forum before 2,500 delegates representing 56 nations, he was able to express his concerns about continuous war. The two U.N. representatives showed great interest in his concerns about America's participation in the wars.
Mr. Winstead, who fought the Japanese in the Pacific in 1944 and 1945, made the pilgrimage for peace and reconciliation to Hiroshima, nearly 70 years after his days of conflict, with the message that we have outgrown warfare.
Interested parties can download Ride for Peace applications on the North Carolina Triangle Veterans for Peace website at www.ncveteransforpeace.org
The purpose of the ride is “to ask our leaders to stop wars” says Mr. Winstead, whose grandson has relayed his first-hand experiences of a war in Iraq, causing countless lives lost, that put America many trillion dollars in debt while destroying a beautiful country and priceless artifacts of the World’s oldest civilization.
Interviews with Mr. Winstead can be arranged by contacting John Heuer, 919-444-3823 or email heu93@aol.com
Who: Riders to join for all or part of the 350-mile bicycle Ride for Peace to Washington DC, with 4 generations of the Winstead family.
What: Applications being accepted.
Where: www.ncveteransforpeace.org