History of Rolling Thunder®
"Run to the Wall:'' Into the 21st Century and Riding On
By Linda Bordner
U.S. Veteran Dispatch Staff Writer
March 2001
They say the sound brings it all back. If you stand in Washington, D.C. the day before Memorial Day and face the Memorial Bridge, you will hear it for yourself. When it begins it's just a distant rumbling, more a feeling than a noise.

Then the bridge itself seems to tremble and something big shimmers on the distant horizon. They say there's only one thing on earth equal to the din of B-52s in carpet-bomb formation. They say it's the sound of Rolling Thunder's Run to the Wall.

What began as a drive to champion what really happened tom abandoned U.S. prisoners of war under the murky veil surrounding the Vietnam War has evolved into a uniquely American cause to protect and aid all U.S. military personnel then, now, and in the future.

There's no denying the noise generated by more than 250,000 motorcycles riding wheel to wheel as they do each year in support of their mission is enough to get anyone's attention. But what's really impressive is the impact the group has had on a national and international level.

To appreciate how far they've come, you really have to go back to where and how they got started. That would be a smoky little diner near Summersville, New Jersey in 1987. A couple of Vietnam vets had crossed paths when they discovered each was doing the same thing on their own.

"We were just two guys going around putting up flags," recalls Artie Muller of his meeting at the diner with co-founder Ray Manzo. "It was Ray's idea to do the motorcycle run. As for the name, there's nothing that sounds more like the B-52's carpet-bombing than a large group of Harley-Davidsons!"

"I was in the U.S. Army," Muller, now Rolling Thunder president, states matter-of-factly. Today, it's no big deal to tell strangers your military affiliation. But Muller remembers clearly the very different world he and fellow vets returned to after serving in Vietnam.

"People would spit on us. Literally. Some called us names like 'baby-killers.' Basically we were treated like hell. I know guys who came home and just went and hid out in the woods.
"Most of us just came home and put our uniforms away. Didn't talk to anybody. Just tried to get back to a regular life. That was the best you could do. But there were guys who were, who still are, having a hard time with it."

The sting of being shunned by the very nation they had gone to fight and lay down their lives for was bad enough. But the pain of learning how politics of war had betrayed them was far worse.

"There were - so many guys - who went their first day into combat and got sent home in body bags the same day. They just weren't being trained what they needed to know to stay alive," Muller recalls.

"I was combat infantry, Sergeant E-5. I extended my stay another three months to keep these guys alive - to train them, the guys just coming in, so at least they'd have a chance."
For many, including American POW patriots left behind in captivity, the right to at least have a chance seemed to be a little too much to ask. In the aftermath of troop withdrawal, the government seemed more eager to save face than to salvage the lives of those who served.