In 1988, a small group of Vietnam vets who felt the U.S. government had ignored the fate of POW/MIAs kick-started the annual Rolling Thunder parade when they rode their motorcycles through Washington, D.C., on the Sunday before Memorial Day. Since then, the parade has swelled to more than 200,000 participants, some from as far away as Australia, who ride to the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial — The Wall. For the last six years, Volvo Heavy Trucks' plant in Dublin, Va., has sent a new tractor along with a group of its UAW members who are military veterans and regularly ride in the parade. They invited Road King to ride along this year and also to lay a wreath at the The Wall to salute trucking vets.
Midnight at the Wall
We enter on a slope, descend past the first thin sliver of names, then edge silently downward to the darkened center of the vertex, the incline running deeper and the sliver widening until the names stretch beyond the reach of a tall man. A smattering of candles flutters along the footpath and sets the polished Bangalore marble to gleaming like sheets of black ice. But if you lean in close and turn your head, as if listening for the names, you'll see the candlelight caught in a film of fingerprints. The satin marble face — cool and smooth as lacquer — invites touch. Few people are drawn to The Wall without being drawn to touch it; the prints linger as traces of this ritual.
Then your fingertips come to rest on a sandpapery row of etched letters. The letters form a name. You think of the mother then, cradling the baby, speaking that name. Then you try to conjure a young man's face to match. The image is necessarily incomplete, ghostly. Then you find yourself wondering what you might have been doing that day when he fell. The power of The Wall is in those names — a silent roll call grit-blasted into the stone to remind us we are not honoring an abstraction, we are honoring 58,214 comrades; each with a life, each with a death. Each with a name.
But there are names missing. And so early the next morning, after four hours of sleep, here I am on the tail of an 85th Anniversary Edition Harley-Davidson driven by a sharpshooting ex-Marine everyone calls Murdoch, wind slapping at my ears, rolling up Interstate 66 toward Washington, D.C. A staggered double line of dancing headlights trails us in the mirror. And running right behind them, looming like the mother ship, is a big black bobtail Volvo VN610. Most of the men and women in this small motorcade belong to UAW Local 2069 and had a hand in building that Volvo. They've brought it with them to help honor the names you don't see on The Wall, the POWs and those still missing in action.
By 7:45 a.m., we pull into the Pentagon's 58-acre north parking lot. There are already several thousand bikes in line, but we'll be in one of the first waves out. It'll be a noisy day. Then I think of the names on the wall, and the names not on the wall, and I think, well, it oughta be noisy.
The bikes roll in for hours. Most are Harley-Davidsons. By 11 a.m., the overpass leading to the parking lot is swarmed with spectators ogling the swelling sea of cycles below. The bikes are packed cheek-by-jowl, clicking and cooling, canted on their kickstands in ranks roughly 10 abreast. Riders milling about on foot lend the scene a sort of constant motion. They check out each other's bikes, snap pictures, reunite with friends. There are a lot of bare arms, a lot of tattoos. A group of eight riders who look like a bad stretch of highway are holding hands and leading each other in prayer. Artie Muller, Rolling Thunder's founder, stands alone in the center of a clear spot, surrounded by lights, cameras and satellite gear, all rigged up in a C-SPAN headset, answering questions none of us can hear. The bikes keep coming.
At high noon, a cluster of red, white and blue balloons rises into the air and the parking lot begins to rumble. Beneath me, the seat shudders as Murdoch fires up the Harley. While we wait to get moving, the exhaust becomes a little overpowering, but everyone is too keyed up to care.
When we finally roll out toward Arlington Memorial Bridge, and I catch my first glimpse of the spectators, I feel a thrill. And when Murdoch snaps off a salute to a solitary middle-aged Ranger standing at ramrod attention, the thrill turns to tightness in my throat. I get that feeling all along the route.
We swing right at the Lincoln Memorial, rumble up Independence Avenue, hang a left around the Capitol, and cruise the home stretch down Constitution Avenue. I remember glimpses: The family, curbside, holding a homemade sign: "Where is Private Jack Smith?" Clenched fists, raised alongside peace signs. Murdoch exchanging "Hooah!s" with grinning Marines. Kids with flags. A man in fatigues, with a quiet face, just watching. Murdoch rapping the engine, and echoes splattering back. The smell of overheating engines, hot clutches.
And then it's over for us. National Park Service police on horses direct us onto the grass of the Mall. Murdoch and I leave the bike, double back and catch a ride on the back of the Volvo. Then we end up sitting in the grass beneath a tree. I remark on the irony of so many Vietnam vets being here, on the very ground where their actions were so vehemently opposed. The protested have become the protesters. He agrees, but points out that many of the original protesters show up to support Rolling Thunder. "They realize the soldiers did what they were told," he says. "They were called, and they went."
Today, some dismiss such loyalty as gullible foolishness or blind jingoism. But to do so is to deny a cold truth: Vietnam may have been a mistake, but the loyalty of the troops that was misused there still underpins our existence. The time will come when it is required again, and if you have grown used to freedom, you better pray someone is still willing to risk theirs for yours. Murdoch and I talk a long time, then walk to The Wall. The bikes are still rolling.
When I got back home, I tried to describe the thunder of 270,000 motorcycles, the passion in the peace signs, fists and salutes, and the desolate power of the names and the empty boots. Mostly people were polite, but their eyes took on a wary glaze, and I had the faintest taste of what it must have been like to return from the jungle in search of a sympathetic ear.
On Monday, a few of us returned to The Wall for a memorial service. As we sat in the bright afternoon sun, I glanced back at the Washington Monument, remembering how it looked at midnight, all lit up, standing clean as a butcher's bone and solid as a compass pointing the way to Glory. It is a monument to look up to, a monument that reminds you of all this country can be. The Wall, on the other hand, requires you to hunker down and face history in person, to contemplate its cost. Flanked by the names, a series of speakers addressed this cost. They were joined on the dais by an empty chair draped with a pair of fatigues, a helmet, and a set of boots. It was a reverent amen to the previous day's thunderous remembrance.
At the Wall, They are not Forgotten
By Bill Hudgins
For the second time in less than two days, I stand before the The Wall. It's Memorial Day, May 25, and I'm holding a wreath with a ribbon that says "Road King Magazine In Honor of All Trucking Veterans" that I will present here.
About 36 hours ago, early on Sunday, May 24, I had come here with several new friends from Volvo Heavy Trucks' Dublin, Va., plant to experience this place at night. Arriving around midnight, we spent more than an hour reading names and examining mementos left by unknown visitors.
People say The Wall sometimes weeps at night; scientists hold that the smooth stone cools and moisture condenses on it. The stone felt dry as I watched a man squatting on one knee before The Wall wipe his hand across his face repeatedly until another man knelt and patted his shoulder. Tears do flow at The Wall.
Now, it's just after noon as Park Service rangers lead me and about 20 other wreath layers to our positions on either wing of the V-shaped wall. Mark Peterson, one of my hosts from Dublin, is on the east side with a wreath from UAW Local 2069; I'm on the west.
As we march down, I'm concentrating on not tripping when I hear a young voice right beside me ask a parent, "Is this real?" I don't hear the answer, but it's a question that goes to the heart of all the controversies raised by the Vietnam War.
Vietnam Still Divides, Unites
I originally had some concerns about being here. Vietnam, and the draft, missed me. I came in at 115 in the first Selective Service lottery, held while I was in college. By the time I graduated, the war was winding down and my number never came up. I had had problems with the war — though not with the warriors, as some did — but would have gone if called.
So I was worried that I'd be taking the place of someone who deserved the honor, maybe needed it, far more than I. "Not at all," Peterson assured me. "I've taken several people who didn't serve in the military or in Vietnam. It's an experience." It is indeed.
Peterson served in the Army from 1981-85. "I'm here for the men and women who have never come home and also for the protection of our future veterans, to tell the government it should never leave our people behind again," he says. His wife, Dee, says her father was a veteran and her uncle was a medic who died of an infection contracted in Vietnam. "We are trying to get his name on The Wall, too," she says.
Salutes, Then Goodbyes
The Memorial Day service lasts about 90 minutes. Career military heavyweights alternate with veterans at the podium. Some angrily denounce the mistakes of the past; others speak of finding comfort here. Crisp uniforms mingle with combat fatigues and biker leathers. U.S. and service flags flutter beside black-and-white POW-MIA banners that proclaim, "You are not forgotten," and "Bring 'em Home or Send Us Back." Above us, helicopters clatter on unknown missions.
The service includes the addition of five names to The Wall — not MIAs, but vets whose deaths have been deemed war-related although they occurred off the battlefield. Along The Wall are dozens of documents identifying other vets whose families believe they, too, deserve to be listed here.
We lay our wreaths as bagpipes play "Amazing Grace" and a bugler plays "Taps" to end the event. Many of the 500 or so there linger, hug, slap backs, swap addresses and business cards. No one is in a hurry to leave; they all have a lot of good-byes to say.
