Rolling Thunder veterans change image of bikers
June 4, 2009 by Hersey · Leave a Comment
On Memorial Day weekend in Washington, parents cheered and their babes waved little American flags at hundreds of bikers. What has happened in three decades to inspire this sea change in attitude toward bikers, a group that once was feared by average Americans?
In an event with the almost-menacing moniker Rolling Thunder, almost half a million motorcyclists rumbled across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, snaked around the Mall and dismounted en masse near the Lincoln Memorial. Most of the bikers were clad in black leather, many sported Visigothian manes and beards and almost all straddled brutish, black Harley-Davidsons or H-D clones.
The bad-boy biker image began decades ago. In Hollister, Calif., on the weekend of July Fourth, 1947, a motorcycle rally became rowdy. Some drunken participants (restless war veterans among them) were arrested, and Life magazine ran a story featuring a staged photograph from Hollister of a belching biker perched on his machine’s footpegs, surrounded by beer bottles. In 1953, Columbia Pictures projected a highly fictionalized and sensationalized version of the event on the silver screen in the Marlon Brando film “The Wild One.”
Attention all US Veterans
November 11, 2008 by Hersey · Leave a Comment
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!
Enjoy your day!
Hero on a Harley
September 5, 2008 by Hersey · Leave a Comment
Arlington man crosses country on motorcycle to help disabled veterans receive their benefits.
When Arlington resident Rob Reynolds’ one-year tenure as Commander of Chapter 10 of the Disabled American Veterans came to an end, he wanted to do something to mark the occasion.
Since 1984, the former 82nd Airborne infantryman and Special Forces soldier had been involved with the 1.3 million-member organization dedicated to assisting men and women left permanently injured as a result of their wartime service.
A few years back, Harley-Davidson was looking for a veterans’ organization to partner with and had chosen the DAV. Reynolds, an avid Harley rider for almost 30 years, put it all together for the perfect plan: a tribute ride across the country timed to coincide with the national DAV conference in Las Vegas, Nev. that took place at the beginning of August.
