Trek’s Trek: remember Brian Terry, support the foundation in his name

In just a few days Erik “Trek” Utrecht of Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute will embark on a cross-country bike ride to raise money for (and awareness of) the Brian Terry Foundation. Said foundation is the work of the parents of murdered Border Patrol Brian Terry. Terry, as many of you reading this will remember, was a former Marine turned local LEO then USBP agent and BORTAC member. He was killed in the line of duty on 15 DEC 10 by cartel members near Rio Rico, Arizona. His killers were armed with weaponry provided through the DOJ/BATF “Operation Fast and Furious” debacle. The Foundation was established not just to honor Terry's memory, but to provide support to and financial assistance to U.S. Border Patrol Agents and their families of those who have been injured or killed in the line of duty. It provide scholarships to college-bound kids that best exemplify Brian Terry's character and to raise awareness of the ongoing problems faced by USBP on the border (and the very real threat conditions there pose to our country's security).

Trek's Trek will take Utrecht from Terry's home town of Flat Rock, Michigan to the Brian A Terry Border Patrol Station in Bisbee, Arizona. It's a distance of just over 2,000 miles. Now, there's some background to this ride. You see, last year a scelestic and unscrupulous crayon-eating jackass (I've been looking for a reason to use scelestic) raised a bunch of money for the Brian Terry Foundation. The Foundation just never received it – by his own admission, he kept it all until his activities were spotlighted and he was called out on it (to date I don't think he ever actually delivered all the funds raised). Utrecht, a former Air Force Security Forces NCO, firearms instructor and private investigator, is the man who did the lion's share of the work gathering up details of the fraud, making the firearms/tactical industry aware of what was going on. Many manufacturers and individual instructors whose names you'd recognize had donated money or otherwise supported this guy's efforts; they trusted him

Fast forward approximately a year. Trek, apparently not content with just exposing the crime, decided to run a transparent, Foundation-approved public fundraiser himself. Thus Trek's Trek was born.

Says Utrecht,

“In the Spring of this year, it came to light that funds that were donated in good faith by scores of folks we know in the industry for the Brian Terry Foundation were in fact not. That situation has come and gone and even as aggravating as it was, it brought the unresolved and unacceptable story of Brian Terry’s murder and OPERATION: FAST AND FURIOUS back to the forefront. Sadly for those of us who try to keep up with current events, there are so many outrageous stories in the daily news that effect all Americans like the Southern Border, NSA, 2A, Iraq, Afghanistan (Hell- the entire Middle East) that being able to focus on one aspect of things can be a daunting task. As for the rest of America- the Kardashians are on TV and Miley Cyrus is twerking so there is nothing else that matters. So what we have for all of us in a business that is made up of Veterans and Patriots alike is a story of a good man who served his country as a Marine, a local cop, a Border Patrol Agent and as a BORTAC member who was killed by a gun given to criminals in a politically driven operation to demonize the 2A, responsible gun owners and the great people that are the firearms industry. To this day, only those that were there the night Brian was murdered in 2010 have been caught or tried. No member of our government has been held criminally responsible.”

Support Trek's Trek. You can go to http://honorbrianterry.com/ and find the Trek's Trek link or just go straight to the donation page right here. You can also support his efforts to refocus attention on FAST AND FURIOUS, raise money for the Brian Terry Foundation and honor Terry's memory by showing up and “Forrest Gumping” it – ride along, even it's just for a few minutes. That's going to be a long, lonely ride. Utrecht would love some company on the route. You can find updates to the success of his campaign (and status checks during the ride) here on the Trek's Trek Facebook page.

You can listen to Trek talk about his trek here on Gunfighter Cast.

Donate a few bucks now.

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