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ROLLING THUNDER By Larry Schwartz President, AMA District III
Memorial Day weekend. Friday morning, May 28th. It was time, again. Time to remember. Time to ride and then time to cry. 4:15am came quickly. My anticipation was high and as my wife and I climbed out of bed on this fourth year that we have made this trip, it occurred to me that most people really don’t know what Memorial Day is all about. For most, it’s a holiday. A time to cook hot dogs, steak, sausage. Have a good time. Watch a parade, maybe. But most really don’t know what the parade is all about. The kids like it, so what the hell. Do I sound somewhat angry about all this? I suppose so. Hundreds of thousands of dead soldiers cry out from World War II. Fifty four thousand from Korean War. Fifty eight thousand from the Viet Nam war. A few from the Persian Gulf. I was ready to honor them all. I was too young for the Korean War. Too old for the Viet Nam obscenity. Too young, obviously, for World War II, but was plenty old enough to know what was going on and that freedom for the whole world was on the line in that one. That generation won the war that allows us all to be living the way we do today. So, I was ready to make the ride to Washington, again. I wanted to see the black granite stillness that radiates a power that’s mesmerizing. Yes, I cried again, as we all should over the terrible waste of young men in a war that was wrong to begin with, and became ever more wasteful and wrong as the years went by. I watched as those who survived found the name they were looking for; scratched the name into tracing paper so they could keep the memory of that friend or loved one close. Or just leaned on the wall, fingertips searching for a memory, a face. It’s silent at the wall itself. Not a sound, but for the hushed movement of people and their clothing. A sacred sound drawn from the blood of tens of thousands. Ten feet from the wall, people whisper, but mostly just watch as they move along, from one end of the monument to the other. You can see that most of them don’t understand what they’re looking at. Most of them have come because they were told it’s something they should not miss and they feel some sort of obligation to pay an homage, even if not understood, completely. And then there are the younger folks. They gaze at history. It’s history to them, not something they are vitally connected to, except from the things they’ve read or heard about. As you watch them, you wonder just what they are really thinking. Yes, the ride down was nice. We had a good group of Viet Nam Vets who took us down. The leader is a guy who knows. His friend from Virginia, who was shot up so badly and was stapled together meets us each year. He’s a wonderful guy. Their thoughts are kept to themselves, but they visit the Wall on Saturday night. First, they take us over. It’s more powerful at night than in the day. Then, at 2:30 the next morning, they go over themselves, to be by themselves and to remember and honor their fallen brethren. We could go, but we were not "in country". We stay asleep. On Sunday, the motorcycle protest parade down Constitution Avenue from the Pentagon parking lot. As usual, it is very impressive. More bikes than ever before in the parking lot. It takes almost three hours for the parade to pass, most of the time the bikes being four abreast. We feel good about being there. I watch the World War II veterans who have come. They’re mostly in their seventies now. They’re proud. We have walked to not only the Wall, but the Korean War memorial too. Everyone should go. At 3pm, Sunday, we’re on our way back to Gettysburg to stay overnight and then take the trip home on Monday. I will go again…..and again. |
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