Bikers Demand Help for Vets, MIA Answers

Thousands of war veterans and their families circled the National Mall on motorcycles Sunday, demanding better treatment of disabilities linked to military service and a final accounting of Americans lost in the Indochina conflict and other wars.

It was the 10th annual Rolling Thunder rally, focused this year on accusations that the government has reneged on obligations to provide veterans adequate health care plus the continuing charge that combatants and prisoners listed as missing overseas have been abandoned.

As part of the long Memorial Day holiday weekend, thousands of others who arrived by car, bus, subway and on foot paid homage in drizzling rain to lost relatives and comrades at the Vietnam War and Korean War memorials.

Ceremonies today will include the laying of wreaths by government leaders and the simultaneous sounding of taps and train whistles in an afternoon “moment of remembrance” organized nationwide by No Greater Love, a humanitarian organization that provides care and friendship for families who lost members in service to their country.

“We will never give up, we will be back 50 years from now, if it takes that long to return America’s brothers and sisters back to the soil they died for,” said Rolling Thunder leader Artie Muller.