Good Morning Kossacks and Welcome to Morning Open Thread (MOT)
We're known as the MOTley Crew and you can find us here every morning at 6:30 Eastern. Feel free to volunteer to take a day - permanently or just once in awhile. With the auto-publish feature you can set it and forget it. Sometimes the diarist du jour shows up much later, that's the beauty of Open Thread...it carries on without you! Just let us know in the comments. You can click on the MOT - Morning Open Thread "heart" if you'd like us to show up in your stream every day.
Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, was first observed after the Civil War in order to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. It is now a federal holiday observed on the last Monday in May which, since the 20th century, has been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars -- all the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces.
Memorial Day parades have been a tradition in towns all across America for well over a century, except in Washington DC. For nearly 70 years there has been no parade in our our nation's capitol and headquarters of our military.
.
The American Veterans Center changed all that in 2005 when they decided to bring this great tradition back to the nation's capitol and make it an event for the entire country -- a major parade to draw attention of Americans to the real meaning of the holiday: honoring those who have served, and died, to preserve our liberties.
.
In its second year the parade drew over 250,000 spectators to honor our heroes in uniform. Today the parade includes nearly 200 elements, including marching bands, active duty and retired military units, youth groups, and parade floats—as well as hundreds of veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
.
Rolling Thunder is an advocacy group -- often referred to as a motorcycle group, but owning a motorcycle is not a requirement, additionally most members are veterans, but that is not a requirement either -- that seeks to bring full accountability for prisoners of war (POWs) and missing in action (MIA) service members of all wars. This organization's first demonstration was in 1988 and it was incorporated in 1995 and today has more than 90 chapters throughout the US and overseas.
Beginning on Memorial Day weekend 1987 and continuing through the present, Rolling Thunder has conducted the "Rolling Thunder Run" where members converge on Washington, D.C. to show their continued support for efforts made to find lost service men and women from past conflicts. It was reported that there were an estimated 350,000 motorcyclists participating in May of 2008. During the weekend event there are many moving speeches by military officials as well as politicians. It is all capped off by the "Ride for Freedom" which leaves the Pentagon, crosses the Memorial Bridge and ends at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The video above was shot during the 2010 Ride for Freedom. If you cannot get the audio or if you have hearing difficulties you should watch anyway. The audio is mostly some music and a few clips from famous speeches. The images in this video say it all.
You will notice at around the 3 minute mark, a Marine in dress uniform, standing at attention and rendering an unbroken salute while he makes eye contact with the Rolling Thunder riders. He is Staff Sgt Tim Chambers and since 2002 he has stood at the corner of 23rd and Constitution Avenue holding his silent salute for the entire 3+ hours of the Rolling Thunder Run.
After 9-11, Chambers yearned to find a way to reach each and every veteran's emotions and heal their pain with respect and compassion. His spontaneous march into the middle of the street 10 years ago to render his salute to the thousands of veterans riding in Rolling Thunder was the answer to his quandary.
Chambers stands at his homemade memorial and addresses the crowd:
“This is for my brothers and sisters and your fellow patriots. It stands here in honor of those in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is their memorial.”
Sometimes veterans with their jean jackets weighed down with patches, medals and patriotic pins, stop and march to SSgt Chamber's position and return his salute.
One year before the ride began, veterans threw and placed flowers at Chambers' feet in a salute to him, but later they took on a different and more profound symbolism for one little girl:
As he stumbled back from exhaustion, a young red-headed girl walked up to Chambers wearing emotions on her face.
“Thank you so much, my name is McKenzie,” she told him. “I lost my father in Iraq five days ago…” she buried her face into Chambers’ shoulder.
After a long embrace, he walked with her to where the flowers were thrown and whispered, “These were thrown down here for your father. You may never hear this but he was a hero. He preserved freedom and left behind a legacy of leadership that will continue to save lives.”
Chambers said he never found out her full name or who her father was, but he will remember the moment for the rest of his life. ~ Source