WASHINGTON, 29 May 2007 — Gleaming motorcycles, hundreds of thousands of them, rumbled down Washington’s normally hushed weekend streets Sunday to emphasize veterans’ needs in a time of war.
The majority of bikers were not as lithe as they were 40 years ago, but for the estimated 400,000 bikers, many of them Vietnam veterans, Memorial Day was a chance to remember and reflect on the war that changed their generation.
Many veterans wore leather vests advertising their platoon, their tour of duty, fallen comrades — and their devotion to their Harley-Davidsons.
The riders honked, waved and gunned their engines to the delight of thousands of onlookers as they paraded around the Mall and rode up and down Constitution and Independence avenues.
Some had ridden across the US in a pilgrimage to “The Wall”, the name given to the stark yet moving monument that records the names of the 58,000 US servicemen who died in Vietnam.
“I got 10 people up on the Wall — one from my squadron. You gotta come and visit them once in a while,” said Jim Burgess, from Florida, who flew reconnaissance planes out of Thailand along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
There were a few newer vets, several of whom were still recovering from injuries sustained in the Iraq war.
Specialist Adoph Morciglio, who drove convoy escorts, is now on disability leave from the US Army after a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in Iraq. One of his team died a couple of months later from his injuries. It was his first time at the Memorial Day event.
Named after a bombing campaign against North Vietnam launched by former President Lyndon Johnson in response to a Viet Cong attack on Pleiku air base that killed eight Americans and wounded hundreds more, Rolling Thunder become a ritual of renewed, cathartic healing, a chance to feel unabashedly patriotic and to revel in the friendly welcomes they received as they travel to the capital.
Milo Gordon, 63, a disabled vet and counselor from Wisconsin, told reporters he felt lost and depressed for years after he came home from Vietnam. But in 1993, he said he happened to visit Washington and found himself at the Wall, crying uncontrollably over a simple wreath that said: “Thank You.”
“At that moment, I quit wanting to die and started to get involved,” he said. “This is the parade we never got.” he said.
The polls show that Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the way the Iraq war has progressed. But in this crowd at least, President George W. Bush found more supporters than critics.
Leaders of Rolling Thunder also paid a visit to the White House, roaring right up the mansion’s driveway where President Bush met them.
Bush took a look at the gleaming bikes and then invited 13 visitors into the Oval Office.
Afterward, the group said they met with Bush for 35 minutes and presented a series of concerns to Bush. Among them: The way the Defense Department classifies missing and captured troops, how the US should be more aggressive in looking for prisoners of war and the plight of soldiers who have been discharged from military hospitals and are having trouble supporting their families.
Yesterday, Bush paid tribute to America’s war dead on Memorial Day with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery.
He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns before giving a speech that paid tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
The president said the nation mourns those who fought and died defending freedom in Iraq and elsewhere. He said they have set an example of strength and perseverance that gives us resolve.
This is Bush’s sixth Memorial Day at Arlington as a wartime president. He missed 2002, when he was in Normandy, France, for D-Day observances.
