Motorcycle group takes message to Washington
May 28, 2007 11:55 AM EDT
President Bush greets Rolling Thunder's national head.
Motorcycle group takes message to Washington
Kris Kirschner/Eyewitness News
Washington, DC - At a special ceremony in Washington this weekend, hundreds of thousands gathered not only in remembrance but in protest. They are known as "Rolling Thunder," and a group of Hoosiers is among them.
In leather chaps and bandanas, they're ready to ride. They are a motorcycle gang on a mission to bring the forgotten home.
For 20 years now, this is the role they played: Remembering those still missing in action and reminding themselves and anyone who'll listen that the names they read aloud belong to soldiers who deserve to come home.
"The government tends to write 'em off after a war's been fought. Then they don't spend the effort to go get 'em," said Jon Brinkley, president of Indiana Rolling Thunder. "We just want to make sure they go after these guys. They are not forgotten."
The dozens of Hoosiers who took off on their Freedom Ride Thursday were making their ninth trip to Washington. They joined hundreds of thousands who lined the streets of the nation's capital. They call themselves Rolling Thunder and they hope to make plenty of noise.
"We go out in protest of the government handling of the POW/MIA issue," said Brinkley. "We want the legislature and Congress to know we're there and we're not going to go away."
Their message extends to President Bush, the country's commander-in-chief. The President greeted the head of Rolling Thunder's national chapter. "We're trying to make sure especially now with the current war going on that they don't leave these guys behind," said Brinkley.
There are 57 Hoosiers still missing in Vietnam. Rolling Thunder members hope by this time next year, those missing will have found their way home.
Thunder rolls into Southern W.Va.
Turnpike tolls, a chance detour bind hog-riding veterans to Rainelle
By The Associated Press
RAINELLE â€" Cole Kayser signs his name on a white shirt for fifth-grader Christian Martin, then rises from the grass outside Rainelle Elementary School, a tall and imposing figure.
He is every inch the retired Marine, from silvery brush-cut hair and camouflage cap to black leather motorcycle boots and the “USMC†tattoo on the edge of his right hand, on display when he salutes.
Ask him how it feels to be here in a sleepy Southern West Virginia town where children chase one-time warriors like Hollywood paparazzi, though, and a tear slides down his cheek.
“I’ve been holding back for 40 years, keeping all that emotion inside,†said Kayser, a Vietnam veteran from La Habra, Calif. “I found a family.â€Â
For one weekend a year, this town of 1,500 opens its park, backyards, fire hall and school auditorium to hundreds of military veterans from across the country. Motorcycles roar into town for the West Virginia Veterans Reunion, and people spend days discussing what few others will â€" the plight of Americans who remain prisoners of war or missing in action.
“As the years go by, sometimes we forget. And we shouldn’t,†said Joann Crowe, who traveled from Meadow Bridge to greet the Rolling Thunder biker brigade. “It seems like a long time ago, but if it was your family, it wouldn’t be. It would be like yesterday.â€Â
Folks here care deeply about the fates of POWs, from those who vanished in World War II and Korea to the 22 West Virginians missing in Vietnam and more recent cases.
Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher, a U.S. Navy pilot from Orange Park, Fla., went missing during Operation Desert Storm in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Army Sgt. Matt Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, vanished in 2004 after an attack on his convoy in Iraq.
“Unless it’s somebody you love or know, most people don’t care about POWs being left behind,†said veteran Danny “Greasy†Belcher, executive director of Task Force Omega of Kentucky.
“It’s like the dog out back. If it’s far enough away from the house, you don’t hear it and you don’t know it’s hungry,†he said. “It’s something this nation doesn’t want to address or do anything about.â€Â
When the bikers arrived Thursday afternoon, there were hugs and laughter. When they handed over the $22,000 they had raised for the school, there was applause and gratitude.
However, the crowd fell silent, choking back tears as four men hoisted a bamboo cage. Inside sat a skinny, white-bearded man with filthy clothes and vacant eyes, a mock POW.
“What would you do? No help. No hope. Nobody looking for you,†asked Belcher. “This is just an image, but there’s men who have lived through this and much worse. We do everything we can to bring them home.â€Â
A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace,†and a flock of white doves fluttered up into the sky.
“This is the way we want the POWs to be â€" free as a bird,†said reunion chairwoman Monica Venable.
Rainelle, 14 miles from the nearest interstate highway, wasn’t always a stop on the Run for the Wall, the annual cross-country motorcycle pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. But 19 years ago, Belcher and about 200 other bikers grew irritated when toll takers on the West Virginia Turnpike refused to let them pay in advance for the group. No one wanted to waste time or tie up traffic, so they looked at a map, spotted U.S. 60 and decided it would be a nice ride.
As they passed homes and towns, word spread to Rainelle. The police chief heard about the bikers by radio and called the principal, who brought the children outside to greet the veterans.
“We came into Rainelle, and there’s flags everywhere and people waving and hollering. We looked around and thought, ‘We’re in the middle of a parade!’†Belcher recalls. “I kept looking back and thinking I was going to see the high school band coming around the corner.â€Â
Then he realized they were the parade.
“It’s a good thing we had dark goggles on, ’cause I know we was all teary-eyed,†he said.
The first few years, the bikers passed through. Then some decided to stay, believing the D.C. rally had grown too big and lost its focus.
Plus, “Big towns have no heart,†Belcher says. Rainelle had heart to spare, plus safe streets, reasonable prices and genuine patriotism.
“You got Jane Fonda, you got Cindy Sheehan, you got George Clooney,†says Pato Pato, a hulking biker from Honolulu who ticks off the names of well-known anti-war activists during his ninth stop in Rainelle.
“These people couldn’t care less about any of them,†he says. “We’re their heroes.â€Â
Steve “Sergeant Rock†Walker of Wickenburg, Ariz., rode into Rainelle 12 years ago, his heart hard, “like a rough, old stone.â€Â
He had killed a 10-year-old boy in a firefight in Vietnam. The boy was armed, the shooting justified, but it didn’t ease his pain. Unable to discipline his own young daughter, he distanced himself from her and others.
In Rainelle, children knew nothing about him. They greeted him with smiles and notepads.
“They really wanted your autograph and they really wanted to get to know you. They want to know your name,†says Walker. “It just blew me away, because all the things that I felt I had lost, I was slowly starting to gain them back.â€Â
He has since reconciled with his daughter. When he held his newborn grandson this year, “I could just sort of feel all the bad things bleed out of me.â€Â
“I get a second chance,†he says, “and not a lot of people get those.â€Â
The veterans’ reunion stretches over five days, with lectures, a parade, a battle of the bands and a replica of the Vietnam Memorial on display today.
Someday, 32-year-old Lynn Guilliams will see the real thing. For now, she pays tribute in Rainelle to her grandfather, World War II veteran Basil Martin, and her grandmother’s younger brother, John Henry Dixon, who is MIA.
“When I win the lottery,†she says, “I’m going to buy a Harley and I’m going to the wall.â€Â
On the Net:
Run for the Wall: www.rftw.org
Rolling Thunder: www.rollingthunder1.com
Task Force Omega: www.greasyonline.com/content-3.html
