Remembering Rolling Thunder, and War Today
Posted on May 24th, 2009
by Kelley Vlahos |
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I had always revered Rolling Thunder — the romantic vision of a Band of Brothers, refugees from a South Asian hellhole whose common experience, really, was the only thing separating them from a certain reckless breed of motorcycle gang. Their annual sojourn to the National Mall for Memorial Day, emblazoned in leather with the simple demand, “Never Forget,” insisted we remember the 58,000 who fell in Vietnam, how they got there and the countless others we pushed away from our consciousness when they came home.
This morning, as I hear the distant roar of their convoys traveling up Route 50 toward the nation’s capital, I am not thinking, as I usually do on Memorial Day, of my uncles and friends who fought in Vietnam. I am mulling over instead the scars of our present war in the Middle East and Central Asia, and how Rolling Thunder disappointed me so, when a large swath of their riders became so patently pro-war under the thrall of rightwing provocateurs like Michelle Malkin, who fueled unfounded rumors that war protesters planned to urinate on The Wall, and deface other war memorials during a 2007 rally on Washington. They proceeded to revel in intimidating Americans who came to the Mall that weekend in peaceful resistance, allowing in effect, Bush Apologists and warmongers to interchange today’s critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan operations with Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan and all manner of spitting hippies. Many became tools, wittingly or not, shedding the vestiges of their rebellious origins, for the sake of propping up the Republican Party at a time when most Americans had turned against the war. They allowed their honorable name to be dragged through the partisan muck.
I was at that protest, and watched as these burly guys — and gals — and their friends and followers lined up in menacing gauntlets outside of The Wall to intimidate activists, I was there when they waved the middle finger and screamed f–ck you! at protesters and told me personally, that it was not George W. Bush that got the country into such a mess, but weak-kneed lefties back home, badmouthing the war, not supporting the mission. Just like Vietnam.
Honestly, these guys always blamed Hanoi Jane, but I liked them better when they blamed Johnson and Nixon and McNamara too.
But I knew then, in 2007, that while the anger at hippies wasn’t forgotten, the mistrust of the government was. Probably still is — but I have a feeling, any problems with veterans and soldiers and future war policy, will certainly be blamed on President Barack Obama from now on.
That’s fine, because this weekend is for remembering. And reminding. As for this war:
Iraq (since 2003) — 4,300 deaths; 46,132 wounded (medical air transport only, doesn’t include illnesses or minor injuries, that would take the number over 80,000)
Afghanistan (since 2002) — 686 deaths; wounded — not available
Number of men and women who have served in either theater since 2002: over 1.8 million
Number of servicemembers returning with depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: 18.5 percent:
Number of Iraq/Afghanistan veterans seeking care at a VA since 2002: 350,000+
Estimated number of soldiers from Iraq/Afghanistan who have suffered a brain injury : 360,000
Number of U.S soldiers still in Iraq: approximately 134,000
Number of U.S soldiers in Afghanistan: 38,000 and counting
* Above photo provided by the Associated Press
Filed under: Iraq, Politics, Uncategorized, War
This post echoes the post below re. Mark Levin. In both cases, people we like are duped into taking a position to the extreme right of the liberal elite. And in both cases we are in the middle somewhere crying out, “Yes But.” This is the losing position. We are right about the war but the other side holds the microphone and understands mass communications better.
Kelley, I rode my Harley in Rolling Thunder about four years ago. Mingling with my fellow vets in the Pentagon parking lot beforehand, we all got to talking about Iraq. Most supported the war, but the theme they kept returning to was payback of a sort for how we returning soldiers were treated like shit back in the seventies. Supporting the current war was pretty much a way of validating one’s own personal history for many and reliving in a more positive way something that had scarred all of us. Very few of the vets had thought seriously about Iraq, I noted, and it was also a shame how the Rolling Thunder leadership had been politicially coopted, but I also noted that most of the riders were essentially good hearted folks who were largely into it because they did not want the current generation of vets to repeat their own experience. God bless them all. The roar of the Harleys coming down Constitution Avenue in front of cheering crowds was somethig to remember.
Thanks Phil — you make a great point. I imagine the vibes at a typical Rolling Thunder Memorial Day congregation were — and still are — quite different from what I experienced at that counter-protest scene in 2007. I wouldn’t have been so disturbed about their behavior then, if I hadn’t placed them in special regard in the first place. I am more angry at the cynical rightwing supporters of the current war who thought they could buy off these veterans with schmaltzy patriotic jingoism and by ripping open old Vietnam wounds (then, of course, conveniently fading away when Iraq and Afghanistan veterans demand they be treated like human beings and not just pieces of meat to be put through a grinder for political ends). That’s the worst.
CUTE MOTORCYCLE STORIES
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When I was 12, in the 1950’s, an uncle took me on his Harley, said we did 120 mph on a California freeway, and I asked what would have happened if a tire had blown? He said, “We’d have died.” Since then, I PEDAL 2 wheels, I MOTORIZE 4 wheels.
A neighbor, when I was 14, stepped on a BIG HARLEY starter pedal, his head crashed into the garage rafters, spent a day in the hospital, said he had stupidly locked his knee while trying to start the Harley. He was a vet, by the way, of WWII, his glass bubble had gotten shot off a flying fortress, had fallen 3 miles, he spent 8 months in the hospital that time.
When I was 22, after getting out of the service, in the late 1960’s, in rural Oregon, I worked in the local coffeehouse/pizza joint, with a guy who had “retired” from the Gypsy Jokers. “So that’s like the Hells Angels?” He said, “Naw, none of that holleywood shit. It was 10% organized crime, the rest an equal mix of hippies and nazis, who like to ride together.” I asked him one day, why do people work hard? What motivates them? He said, “Anybody will work hard, if they get hungry enough.”
In the early 1990’s, while teaching Microsoft Technicians to answer the telephone, on a weekend off, I was sitting in a room with about 30 bikers. A cigarette was handed to me, to smoke, as we were talking, and I said, “No thanks, can’t do it.” The room went instantly silent, 30 people were looking at me, and I started to explain, “I been in AA for about 5 years, and…”. Instantly everything was okay again, and the the guy next to me, told the guy next to him, “Run and get this man a 7-up out of the fridge.”
DUMB STUFF
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Philip Giraldi said - “Very few of the vets had thought seriously about Iraq, I noted…”
Imagine saying very few of the people who fought in WWII ever thought about it. Very few of the people who fought in Viet Nam were ever aware of why we were there, or what that war was about. LOL
Now, the newest generation, with the highest qualifications, and the highest education, of any military in history, are probably ALL dumber than Philip Giraldi. LOL
If I were a LIBERAL ELITE, I would say stupid stuff like, “People who disagree with me, GOD BLESS ‘EM, probably unquestioningly accepted EVERYTHING the PREVIOUS GOP administration said, WANT CONSTANT WAR, like to hear about dead babies, and only joined the military to act our their inadequacies.”
That would be forgetting about the PRESIDENT JOHNSON YEARS, where the guy LIED ABOUT BEING A PACIFIST TO GET ELECTED, did major escalations of the war, and along the way ENSLAVED MANY OF THE US MINORITIES WITH HIS WELFARE PROGRAMS, for decades to come. …like any good LIBERAL DEMOCRAT WANTS TO DO.
STUPID STATISTICS TO BE TWISTED TO MY AGENDA
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http://warchronicle.com/numbers/WWII/deaths.htm
US Death Toll, WWII - Half a million
NAZI DEATH CAMPS - 12 million (depending on who you believe)
Viet Nam - Average 4,000 per year, for 15 years
Cambodian Death Camps, just after we left Viet Nam - 3 million (depending on who you believe)
US Traffic accident toll LAST YEAR - 42,000 (California alone 4,000)
US Traffic Deaths, per 100,000 registered drivers per year - 15
US IRAQ WAR Deaths, per 100,000, per year - 35
(Calc at 1.8 million/avg tour 2 yrs, by 4,300 deaths/in 6 years)
Saddam Death Camps - 3/4 million (depending on who you believe)
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/4751,opinion,saddam-era-the-death-toll
A CONSERVATIVE WRAPUP
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Don’t EVER listen to the millions of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh, because they are “stupider than us”, and they blindly must believe EVERYTHING HE SAYS.
Don’t ever listen to the millions of voters (40 to 50% of us) who voted for BUSH, because they are “stupider than us”, and they blindly must believe EVERYTHING HE SAYS.
Don’t be a stupid veteran, who “became so patently pro-war under the thrall of rightwing provocateurs like Michelle Malkin…”. (Or ANN COULTER, or SARAH PALIN, or LAURA INGRAHAM.) And don’t listen to any of the people who listen to her, because they are “stupider than us”, and they blindly must believe EVERYTHING SHE SAYS.
Oh, and we STUPID CONSERVATIVES need a BIGGER TENT, so we MUST LISTEN to DICTATORS such as CHAVEZ and AHMADINEJAD and KIM JONG-IL. We need to give DEMOCRATIC VOTERSHIP to the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, such as ILLEGAL ALIENS, STREET PEOPLE, and Liberal Arts College Students (And did I mention ACORN-sponsored DEAD PEOPLE? Seems DEAD PEOPLE almost always vote DEMOCRAT - LOL).
Or not. Depending on whether you want to be a Lyndon Johnson/Barack Obama LIBERAL. Big Taxes, LIE about war, social-engineering. Depending on whether you’ve ever considered that the IRAQ WAR Death Toll was VERY LOW, and it was when BUSH went into IDIOT LIBERAL NATION BUILDING mode, that the Death Toll skyrocketed, and we got bogged down there.
I’m just saying… (but I’m “just saying”, AS A CONSERVATIVE!).
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come to cut up your remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your death like a soldier.
Rudyard Kipling
Charles - Back during my days in army intelligence I spent a lot of time with an old sergeant who had passed many hours hunkered down in a trench in Korea. His sole companion had been Kipling’s “Barrack Room Ballads,” which he would quote in extenso. He would run through “Fuzzy Wuzzy,” Gunga Din,” and the “Ballad of East and West.” but his favorite poem was “The Young British Soldier,” which you quote from. His voice would rise at the last verse, “And go to your Gawd like a soldier” and there were always tears in his eyes as he concluded. I wonder if General Petraeus reads Kipling?
Rolling Thunder are thugs, when they ride through my town I am more scared of them than I have ever been scared of the so called ‘terrorists’ out there.