It’s a good match. Ever since I’ve been riding, ‘the rough bikers’ I’ve known have called their women, ‘my old lady.’
But now there’s a whole different kind of ‘lady’ associated with bikers too. Younger, older, and all in between. The American Gold Star Mothers are those who have had a son or daughter killed in war. Some of the mothers have white hair and walk with walkers now. Some are young mothers, not yet 40 years old; they lost their sons and daughters in the current war in Iraq. The American Gold Star Mothers represent many mothers whose sons and daughters died in the line of duty, never made it home, or passed away from wounds or diseases after.
On Memorial Day, the heavy bikers, many of them vets themselves, make a special trip. Their outfit is called Rolling Thunder and they do indeed roll and thunder into our nation’s capital, Washington DC, each biker carrying an American Gold Star mother in the catbird seat on the back of their bikes.
Some also call these mothers of fallen warriors, “the women in white,’ as most of these moms dress for the DC ride in white slacks, white blouses, emblazoned with their emblems of ‘the star.’ All the classic Electra Glides and Indians and Harley Soft Tails and Gold Wings and other touring bikes are chamois-ed up like coaches and carriages to carry the mothers.
When I contacted Bonnie Cutler, National Director of the Patriot Guard Riders, she said, “Our members do lots of good all across the nation. They never cease to amaze me, whether they’re staging a huge welcome home for one lone hero returning home on leave from Iraq, or building a new floor for a disabled vet who cannot otherwise afford to pay someone to do it… I’ve never been surrounded by a better group of people.”
The American Gold Star mothers are a group formed in 1928 by a mother named Grace Seibold. She lived in Washington DC, and her son, George, flew with the British Air Squadron in Europe in WWI. During the war she volunteered at soldier’s hospital in the States, and was deeply moved by ‘those who grieved alone.’
During the war, Mrs. Seibold received no visit from officers pulling up to the house, no black bordered letter about her son George. However, upon a cold Christmas Eve, a package arrived without any letter. The outside of the package was marked only: “Effects of Deceased Officer, First Lieutenant George Vaughn Seibold, attached to the 148th Squadron, BRFC.”
Mr. and Mrs. Seibold could not believe the evidence. They vowed to find their boy.
They searched the returning vet hospitals for their son, hoping he had been misidentified, checking every living soldier whose face had been shattered beyond recognition. Hoping, dearly hoping.
It was not meant to be… They eventually received a confirmation letter saying their boy was lost in aerial combat during the heaviest fighting over Baupaume, France, August 26, 1918. His body, like that of many US soldiers who died in the forests and rivers in Europe, was never recovered.
It took another ten years, but finally, by a decree of President Wilson, the American Gold Star Mothers group was formed. They are a non-profit organization. They do not lobby politically, but do not prevent their individual members from doing so. One of their guidelines in their original charter is to promote peace among all nations.
A call out to a good South Carolina road warrior by the name of Randy “Steam” Stevens, brought this wise insight about the long road to, I have to say, not healing, but learning to live with losing one’s soldier-child: “….every year Rolling Thunder attracts hundreds of thousands of bikes to Washington… There is an email scramble … in our organization and others of like mind to find empty back seats for Gold Star Moms who have decided they want to enter Washington on a bike. Somehow, these ladies who have lost children in the military wanting to ride into Washington on a motorcycle seems a very healthy thing to me.”
Most bikers are philosophers. A long time in the saddle gives a rider plenty of time to think. A few hours, especially at least two days away from the familiar, on any road that loves the tires, and you feel you can breathe again. It’s not a metaphor. Take Neil a/k/a Neil Cotter, author of “The Long Ride Home or (A Bikers Ode To A Busted Ass) (that last is an extremely precise technical term in the biker lexicon) for instance. When I asked him “What kind of qualities do you think makes a rider wish to take a gold star mom into DC?†he was crystal clear:
“In a word? An American! It doesn’t matter what your politics are and nobody cares where you stand on the war. The people that volunteer for the escort detail …are only doing it for one reason… to show some gratitude to the loved ones of our Nations best and brightest who have paid the ultimate price… There is only one thing more terrible than losing your child in a war. That’s losing your child in a war to an ungrateful nation…”
Sometimes people from ‘the auto clan’ think people from ‘the biker clan” are kind of like banditos. Well, there may be a little truth to the appearance: there are so few roles for pirates nowadays. But I like this description too: “… harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear…” That’s the way Homer put it about Ares, the God of war… who incidentally was prayed to for removal of cowardice and to ” …give me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death.”
There’s bound to be a good deal of that ancient prayer still inside the bones of the engine men and women who are rolling to DC this Memorial Day, and the gold star mothers in white who ride behind them. It’s a prayer most of us can roll with.
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See here for a picture of the Rolling Thunder- American Gold Star Mothers rally in DC, 2006. In the larger crowd in the upper half of the picture, every rider is carrying either a gold star mother, or a blue star mother, or a widow of a deceased soldier. The 2007 Rally is going on in DC as we speak.
http://www.goldstarmoms.com/agsm/Events/MemorialDay/RollingThunderPanoPic.htm
“Gold Star Mothers and The Bikers with Hearts of Gold: Memorial Day 2007″© C.P. Estés, All Rights Reserved. Pub’d here under Creative Commons License. For other uses, contact copyright holder.