HEAR THEM ROAR

The annual Rolling Thunder parade of vets on bikes is sure to stir any American’s heart

WASHINGTON — They come from every state in the country, many traveling for hours, most for days.

Nearly always on a motorcycle, nearly always with someone — more often than not with a large group — but always with one singular purpose: to honor their brothers and sisters who gave their lives for their country and to remind us all never to forget their sacrifice.

This is Rolling Thunder, a demonstration in Washington, DC, that began the Sunday before Memorial Day in 1987 when two Vietnam War veterans — Artie Muller and Ray Manzo — desperately wanted to highlight the prisoners of that war and those still listed as missing in action.

They came up with the crazy idea that a little motorcycle march on Washington might just get their cause some attention.

They figured if they asked folks to come in cars, it would look like nothing more than a beltway traffic jam. But if they came on bikes, they might get Washington’s notice.

How did they get the word out? A letter in Outlaw Biker magazine six months earlier. No hashtags. No tweets. No Facebook posts.

Muller and Manzo had no idea if anyone would show up.

Yet, turn up they did: That first year, 2,500 riders rumbled into town, a number that moved both men to tears.

Thirty years later, with a Rolling Thunder march happening annually every Memorial Day weekend, that number is now 900,000-strong, as the veterans march has morphed into a cultural movement that shows no signs of losing momentum. (Although Manzo is no longer involved in the march, Muller still runs Rolling Thunder out of his house in Neshanic, NJ.)

Some folks take days to make the pilgrimage, stopping in state capitals or at rural county courthouses that honor veterans with town-square memorials. They fill tables at diners or motor lodges along the way.

Bystanders line up along the US routes in many small towns and salute the riders parading past, draped in red, white and blue or in somber black to honor the fallen.

It is an ear-numbing, heart-stirring, peaceful demonstration — eerily or-