The Rolling Thunder rally is an annual Memorial Day (observed on the last Monday of May) spectacle the Americans just don't miss.
WASHINGTON: Call it what you will — an expression of freedom, an homage to the brave men and women who gave up their lives in war, or, to the sceptics, just another way to show off their shiny acquisitions — but when more than 10,000 Harley Davidsons, some of them with Vietnam veterans atop, entered Washington, DC, on Sunday, there was more than an air of excitement.
As Ross Mayer, 18, said, "I have been coming to watch the Harleys on Memorial Day every year since I was 12, but the goosebumps have never stopped. It's weird, but it makes me feel more patriotic than a President's speech during war time." Mayer was just one of the hundreds of thousands who had lined the streets to welcome the leather-jacketed motorcycle men and women.
The Rolling Thunder rally is an annual Memorial Day (observed on the last Monday of May) spectacle the Americans just don't miss. The Rolling Thunder organisation was founded by Vietnam veterans and Harley freaks Artie Muller and Ray Manzo in 1987 to get national (and international) attention for soldiers who lost their lives or are missing, and by now gained cult status across the country, mainly because of the Harley Davidson rally.
Veterans, along with thousands of other supporters, get on top of their Harleys from all over the country, and take the long road through several highways such as the Interstate 66 into Washington, DC. This year was no different.
The itinerary was packed, and the time, short. Both on Sunday and Monday, members of Rolling Thunder paid tribute to the martyrs, made speeches, held moments of silence, pleaded with the government to pay more attention to army veterans (recently, personal data on lakhs of veterans was stolen from government files, and has become a huge embarrassment for the Bush administration), and yes, also held rallies to meet people who had lined up greet them.
Founder Artie Muller, now 61, told the media: "I hope Bush is listening to us." Several veterans felt it was the best Rolling Thunder rally ever since the first in 1987 that saw 2,300 motorcycles landing up in the nation's capital.
Not surprisingly, the heat (temperatures touched a high of 31 degrees Celsius) did not matter to the leather-clad veterans and their supporters — the heat of the moment kept them from not giving up and going home.
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