It’s a beautiful Saturday morning and I’m on the way to enjoy the beach. I’m in my Volvo hatchback with the windows down sitting at an intersection in Escondido, California waiting for the light to turn green. The sun is shining, there’s a gentle sea breeze from the west, the birds are chirping. All of a sudden, an obnoxious horde of what appears to be a hundred motorcycles pops over the horizon. Just as my light turns green, two riders stop inches from my front bumper. One of them flashes a menacing smile and gives me a “thumbs up” seeming to ask me if I’m OK with waiting for them to pass. I most certainly am not “OK” with this! Who do these clowns think they are? As I try to gesture my disapproval, the two riders rev their loud V-Twin engines, clearly indicating that they really don’t care whether I approve or not. They’re going to shut down this road and ride through as a single group whether I like it or not. Rather than push the issue, I sit and wait for the horde to pass, thundering pipes, exhaust fumes, tattoos, patches, and leather.
I actually wasn’t the guy in the Volvo. I was one riding my motorcycle and I could see the guy in the Volvo as we thundered by. The group was the Combat Vets Motorcycle Association (CVMA) and I had been riding with them for over a year. I don’t ascribe to many of the things my fellow CVMA members ascribe to. While most ride obnoxiously loud Harley Davidsons, I ride a Triumph that sounds more like a slightly agitated sewing machine. I don’t generally wear black leather or patches that say “Viet Cong Hunter” or “Gas, grass, or ass, nobody rides for free”. But I enjoy being around fellow vets and I enjoy riding motorcycles. Most of our rides are just about comradery and the ride. Sun on our chest, fists in the wind. We’ll pick a scenic route, make a few stops, have a drink, share a story. While I don’t personally suffer from combat-related trauma, many combat vets say that getting out on a motorcycle is therapeutic, provides periodic relief from sad memories and bad dreams. But this ride felt different. We were shutting down intersections, blocking traffic, and making people feel uncomfortable. We were disrupting their quiet, calm, sunny day, assaulting them with decibels, vibrations, and noxious exhaust fumes. This was rude and unruly. This was civil disobedience. This felt like a demonstration.
This unauthorized parade included a diverse bunch. Medics and airmen. Riflemen and sailors. Men, women, black, white, brown. Young Marines and soldiers, still in their twenties, bearing patches and insignias from Afghanistan or Iraq, having seen more direct enemy contact than any generation of warriors before them. Vietnam-era septuagenarians with names like Devil Doc and Breeze, wrinkled leathery arms and faded tattoos with too many stories of lost limbs and lost friends. As our unruly mob forced our way through Southern California traffic towards a bar on the coast, I wondered how many of these frustrated weekend commuters realize how many combat vets they encounter each day or the wounds they carry or that we’re still fighting America’s longest war and producing an endless, seamless succession of new combat vets. As so many Americans prepare their watercraft and unfurl their flags for Memorial Day weekend two weeks from now, how many will think about the 2,312 U.S. military personnel killed and 20,066 wounded in Afghanistan or remind themselves that we are still fighting in Afghanistan, that vets are still dying in Afghanistan, nearly 20 years after the war started. Never have Americans fought for so long without questioning why, so long that most of us have simply forgotten we are still fighting.
Our country loves to celebrate our vets. We love to fly our flags and talk about how much we love our vets. On Memorial Day, we’ll hop in our boats, fill our coolers with watered down beer, and celebrate our vets until we puke our brains out portside. We’ll wipe the drool on our flag patterned tank top, yell “Merica!” and shotgun another beer. All while forgetting the vets that live on our street or the vets right now fighting in a forgotten war.
I don’t pretend to represent the vets who rode with me on Saturday or to know why each of them joined the ride. But for a brief, loud, gasoline soaked moment along a crowded California highway they were front and center and not a summer celebration side note.