The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
51°F
Current Conditions
Broken clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Thunder convenes in capital

U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tim Chambers, of Twentynine Palms, Calif., salutes bikers at the Rolling Thunder memorial ride in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Paul Schwartzman Washington Post
U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Tim Chambers, of Twentynine Palms, Calif., salutes bikers at the Rolling Thunder memorial ride in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

WASHINGTON – As Memorial Day weekend began, the familiar clatter of motorcycle engines could be heard caroming off monuments and memorials across the Mall.

They were back, veterans of the Vietnam War, streaming into town on their Harleys to gather at the memorial devoted to more than 58,000 of their dead comrades.

Denny Haldeman, 56, a retired Army specialist who spent six months in Vietnam, stood on Constitution Avenue, smoking an unfiltered cigarette after riding 400 miles from his Ohio home.

Until 10 years ago, Haldeman said, he never would have come for Rolling Thunder, as Sunday’s motorcycle procession is known, because he was ashamed he’d fought in Vietnam.

But seeing so many veterans in the same place at the same time has helped him embrace his past.

First held 18 years ago with a couple of thousand participants, Rolling Thunder has evolved into a rite of Memorial Day weekend in the nation’s capital, a chance for hundreds of thousands of veterans and bikers from across the country to renew ties, promote veterans’ issues and revel in the adulation of crowds watching the procession of leather and metal.

“It has become a pilgrimage,” said Eric Christiansen, a filmmaker who produced “Homecoming,” a 1999 documentary that chronicled the journey of a group of veterans from California to Rolling Thunder. “After the catharsis at the Wall, they get the pride and joy of being with hundreds of their brothers.”

Taking its name from President Lyndon Johnson’s “Rolling Thunder” bombing campaign during Vietnam, the procession starts at the Pentagon, crosses the Memorial Bridge and travels along Constitution and Independence avenues.

It is not without detractors, who contend it has turned into an oversize biker party.

Bill Line, a spokesman for the National Park Service, which issues the permit for the event, said people have complained about traffic tie-ups and the noise, though he said most have grown accustomed to it.

One resident who will stay away is Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran who lives in Oakton, Va. He criticized the gathering in a column for Air Force Times as a “well-intentioned” but “inappropriate” salute to veterans.

“I don’t want thousands and thousands of motorcycles cluttering up my beautiful city,” he said by phone. “It’s the annual eyesore as well as an ear-sore.”

Informed of Dorr’s remarks, Artie Muller, Rolling Thunder’s president, said it was a relatively minor inconvenience to endure for a single day.

“Most of those guys on motorcycles are veterans who fought in past wars – and if it wasn’t for them, he would not have the town he has to live in so freely and the lifestyle to go anywhere he wants,” Muller said.