The roar begins in the parking lot at the Pentagon. Within minutes, the slow rumble, mostly of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, makes its way onto Memorial Bridge.
Thus begins the Rolling Thunder’s First Amendment Demonstration Run. Founded in 1987, the organization raises awareness for people listed as prisoners of war or missing in action in all wars going back to World War I.
After making its way across the Memorial Bridge, the wave of motorcycles passes the Lincoln Memorial, rolls onto Constitution Avenue, and rumbles past the National Mall to the Capitol. The bikers then make their way to Independence Avenue and drive past the Mall again before completing their run at Potomac Park, where the cavalcade pays tribute to America’s fallen soldiers. The event continues with speakers at the Lincoln Memorial, followed by a musical tribute to veterans. The day ends with a Memorial Day concert at the Capitol.
The 2019 event will almost certainly be the biggest of them all, in part because it will also be the last. The unique motorcycle ride will finally come to an end.
Biker events have a long history in this country. Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Fla., and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, S.D., are two of the biggest, drawing anywhere from 500,000 to 700,000 participants. Those events, however, take place over the course of an entire week. Rolling Thunder’s Ride for Freedom attracted more than 500,000 riders in 2018 for a single day.
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So why would organizers of an event that attracts hundreds of thousands of riders and spectators bring it to an end? The answers are money and bureaucracy.
Rolling Thunder’s executive director, Artie Muller, wrote in a letter to the organization’s millions of supporters: “Reasons which determined our decision were the Pentagon Security Police/Washington Police officials continued lack of cooperation, increased harassment to our supporters and sponsors. As demonstrated this past Rolling Thunder ‘Ride For Freedom’ XXXI many of our supporters were diverted and prevented from entering the South Pentagon/Boundary Lots. Event staging costs have soared to $200,000.00 plus, lack of new Corporate Sponsor funding and the general public declined support of our event product sales (patches/pins/stick flags) in the Pentagon Lots. Financial factors are draining the organization funds if we continued this major costly annual event in Washington.”
The organization was formed to raise awareness for POWs from the Vietnam War, but it now raises awareness for those listed as POW/MIA in World War I and World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Iraq War, and other conflicts.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, more than 82,000 men and women remain missing from the wars. The website says that “75% of the losses are located in the Indo-Pacific, and over 41,000 of the missing are presumed lost at sea (i.e. ship losses, known aircraft water losses, etc.).”
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Rolling Thunder has 90 chapters across 29 states, all governed by the same constitution and bylaws. Most members are veterans themselves, but it is not a requirement for membership. Each chapter must have its own president and board members, and each bears responsibility for raising funds and filing all the necessary tax information. Every chapter must also have at least 20 members and a unique patch design.
The cost of the national event is a significant factor in ending it, but Muller also cited what he said is a lack of support from Pentagon officials, manifested in the diversion of bikers away from Pentagon parking lots, which, Muller says, they used in the past without problems.
In a letter to Pentagon officials after the 2018 event, Muller wrote, “Participants were turned away from entering the South Pentagon Parking Lot and Boundary Channel Parking Lot, causing our supporters to ride in circles and thus causing them to leave in disgust.” Muller also said that as a result of the diversions, donated portable toilets went unused, and much of the $6,000 worth of food and water donated by Giant Foods-owned Peapod had to get tossed away.
Department of Defense spokesmen deny these allegations, arguing that the agency fully supports Rolling Thunder’s right to demonstrate, but they added that the department must ensure the safety and security not only of the bikers but also of the Pentagon complex.
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Spokeswoman Susan L. Gough emailed Delaware’s Dover Post and said, “The department has full confidence and trust in the competence and professionalism of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency and is prepared to support the 2019 Rolling Thunder ride, as we have for the past 31 years.”
It’s an unfortunate but common happenstance for an event so large: that it becomes a victim of its own success. There’s the likelihood that some miscommunication or lack of communication created confusion, leading to accusations that Pentagon officials harassed bikers. Navigating traffic on a typical day in and around Washington is difficult. Trying to coordinate a one-day event with more than half a million participants would prove challenging even for the most patient.
There are objections to ending an event that costs “only” $200,000 and change, but the main aim of Rolling Thunder is to raise awareness of veterans’ circumstances. The highest priority is to keep public officials on their toes and account entirely for prisoners of war and others missing in action.
The organization sometimes received White House support. In an interview with the Washington Post in May 2016, Muller said, “President [George W.] Bush was very good to us.” He has photos of himself with Bush in the Oval Office and on the White House driveway, as well as a letter of appreciation from the chief executive. President Barack Obama didn’t show much interest in the group, never meeting with them personally outside of popping into a meeting for a moment one year, Muller said.
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Muller didn’t criticize President Trump despite the president saying, “I like people who weren’t captured,” when asked about Sen. John McCain, a POW in Vietnam for five years. Muller said, “I’m not bothered by it. Sometimes people say things. They don’t have time to think, and they say the wrong things.”
It’s possible Muller’s reaction to Trump was muted because McCain was Staff Sgt. Ted Sampley’s target. Sampley, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and one of the co-founders of Rolling Thunder, was an outspoken critic of McCain. He accused McCain and then-Sen. John Kerry of whitewashing the issue of POWs in Vietnam when they served on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs from 1991 to 1993.
Sampley and others believed Americans were still languishing in Vietnamese camps as POWs. The committee released its unanimous findings on Jan. 13, 1993. “While the Committee has some evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia,” it declared.
Debate was so heated that as the hearings wound down in 1992, Sampley wrote an article calling McCain a “Manchurian candidate” on the arm of the Vietnamese government. He left copies in every senator’s office, including McCain’s, which resulted in Sampley getting into a fistfight with McCain’s chief of staff, Mark Salter.
Rolling Thunder has attracted some criticism. A 2014 article in the Economist said, “Rolling Thunder was founded in 1987 to advance a specific crackpot belief: that successive Republican and Democratic administrations have concealed evidence that American captives are being held alive in South-East Asia.”
Any advocacy organization trying to push the government is bound to attract a few conspiracy theorists to its ranks — people who assume the government is out to “get them.” But for an event to grow as Rolling Thunder’s annual ride has for three decades, it has to appeal to the emotions and concerns of a wide swath of the public. Americans care a lot that armed services veterans are treated with the respect, care, and honor they deserve.
What’s next? Will Rolling Thunder close down? Not if Muller has his way. He has called upon the 90 local chapters to keep the spirit of the D.C. event alive by hosting their own Memorial Day demonstrations and rides beginning in 2020.
The 24/7 cycle of cable news and the proliferation of stories on social media means that yesterday’s outrage quickly becomes today’s “old news.” Public interest is hard to sustain as attention spans shrink. Instead of getting several seconds of coverage on CNN and perhaps a little more on Fox News, Rolling Thunder will have a greater impression with demonstrations and rides taking place in Trenton, N.J., Harrisburg, Pa., Raleigh, N.C., and Tallahassee, Fla. This is calculated to maintain the level of awareness the organization’s leaders require to continue with the mission.
The future is a bike ride into uncharted territory. This year, however, Rolling Thunder promises to be special. It’s the final run in what started as a gathering of a mere 2,000 participants in 1988. Many people who for years have put off participating in the ride, or who have taken a seat and watched rather than ridden themselves, will decide this is the year to put on the star-spangled bandannas and add their horsepower to the deafening roar.
Rolling Thunder 2019 seems likely to be the biggest yet. Thousands will hoist themselves into the saddle and ride off into the sunset — a great American tradition — but the sunset looks like a blaze of glory.
Jay Caruso is a deputy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine.
