Glen Cove woman running 7 marathons in 7 days to honor veterans

On Sunday, Eva Casale of Glen Cove will run a marathon, beginning at Huntington Town Hall and winding through Commack and Northport, finishing at the village dock.

Then, she'll run another marathon Monday. And another on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, before marking what she calls North Shore Fallen Heroes Day with a run through Bayville and Glen Cove on Saturday — her seventh full marathon in seven days.

All because, Casale said, it's the least she can do to honor military veterans and fallen soldiers and their families.

“Growing up, you'd hear a lot about veterans coming home from Vietnam, being forgotten,” said Casale, 57. “And after 9/11 you'd hear about these Gold Star Families, how their son died fighting for our freedom and over time I met families and thought, 'What can I do to help?'”

As an ultra-marathoner, Casale said, “It was a natural fit for me to run to honor our service members. To honor those who serve our country, who keep us safe."

Casale began her first series of marathons in 2016 and has run them each year except 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced its cancellation.

Since she began, Casale has raised more than $350,000 through her 501(c)3 non-profit organization Team E.V.A., Every Veteran Appreciated. Funds go to local VFWs and other military service organizations, as well as to veterans and their families.

This year, Casale’s marathons will benefit Gold Star Families — immediate family of a service member killed in time of conflict.

Along the way, Casale will stop at memorials, monuments, markers and gravesites and even at the American Legion on Woodside Avenue in Northport, where others will join her for a 10-kilometer portion of her run.

In all, she will run about 184 miles, with about 300 stops to leave flowers, wreaths and flags, to exchange hugs and handshakes, or just pause for a moment of reflection.

"I have this gift to be able to run long distances," Casale said. "It's my passion and I think it's important to take that passion and use it for others.”

'Not a day I don't cry'

Gold Star mother Diana Bonacasa of Coram will speak at the opening ceremonies 10 a.m. Sunday at Huntington Town Hall.

Bonacasa ran a segment with Casale during the first annual Team E.V.A. event in 2016, just months after her son, Staff Sgt. Louis Michael Bonacasa, 30, was killed in action with five others in Afghanistan.

Known as Bones, Louis Bonacasa enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after the 9/11 terror attacks and made four deployments, including one to Iraq and two to Afghanistan, as a member of the New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing at the Francis S. Gabreski base in Westhampton Beach and the 105th Base Defense Squadron out of Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh.

Part of a team assigned to provide security for U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations special agents on an intelligence-gathering mission out of Bagram Air Base, Bonacasa was killed Dec. 21, 2015, in an attack by an explosive-laden motorcycle suicide bomber in a nearby village. Officials said Bonacasa placed himself between the bomber and team members "with selfless disregard for his own personal safety," only to be killed.

Awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star with Valor, the Air Force Achievement Medal and made an Honorary OSI Agent, Bonacasa left a wife, Deborah, daughter Lilianna, then 5, as well as his brother Vincent and twin sisters Gabriella and Raquel.

In an interview, his parents, Diana and Vincent, recalled the day their son's remains arrived home in an airlift to Gabreski: New Year's Day, 2016.

It was freezing cold, overcast. "It looked like it was going to rain any second," Vincent Bonacasa said. As the family reached the base parking lot, he said, they saw the transport carrying their son — just as the sun came out.

"Like God himself opened a door and the sun just shined on us," he said.

Still, more than six years later, the loss of their son brings tears.

"It was horrible then," Diana Bonacasa said of learning her son had been killed. "It still is."

As Vincent Bonacasa said: "There's not a day I don't cry."

Which, they said, is why they love what Casale does by running. Because she helps bring acknowledgement. Because she helps bring remembrance.

"She acknowledges the sacrifice, from day one, of those who give their lives for this nation and the sacrifice you can't even begin to understand unless you're a military family," Diana Bonacasa said. "We saw our son and how proud he was every time he put on his uniform. This woman, she goes out there and runs for those who serve, like him, every single step."

Often, says Casale, those sacrifices go unrecognized by the general public.

"One year," Casale said, "we were in Miller Place and we stopped at this memorial next to a basketball court. A group of kids were playing basketball and they saw us come up, saw us stop to place flowers, and they came over and said, 'What are you doing?' We explained to them and their reaction was, 'We play ball here every day and we had no idea.'”

She added, “People go through their towns every day and don't think about the significance of a memorial or a marker or why is that flagpole there. We do this to bring attention to all of that, to help people understand the significance. It's why I run."

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”