Ride Report – Submitted by Road Captain Bobcat:

A very nice ride today for a wonderful young man, Dominick DiPaolo, and his family who deserve our thanks and our respect.  Hopefully we accomplished both of those things today.  In the short time we were there, they made us feel like one of the family.  After meeting such a gracious, giving family it was not hard to imagine where such fine young men come from.

My nephew, Mike Kane, came down from Allentown to join us on this ride.  He and I met up with Ducttape about a mile from the Prison parking lot because Charlie was asked to leave by a security officer and his dog (somehow, I can understand that, LOL).  We then headed down to I95 to meet up with Mike and Doreen.  While we waited, Ron joined us.  After waiting about 15 minutes we decided to head for the rally point and low and behold, there they are.  Goldwing30 joined us in a cage due to bike problems.  So we ended up with 5 bikes and 7 people.  We held a short briefing at 1230 and decided that we would form a line and render a salute to this young hero once we dismounted.  At about 1145, I contacted the family to tell them that we were about 15 minutes out and they said to come on in.  We flagged up and headed out for the 4.5 miles to the DiPaolo home.

As we approached, Dom and his dad were out front and called out the others inside to observe our arrival.  Ron added a very nice touch at this point.  While we were parking and dismounting, he played a wonderful version of “America the Beautiful” on his sound system and would not turn it off until it had completed.  It made for a very special arrival.  Thanks Ron.  We all said hello to Domenick and his parents.  Then we appologized for not being able to escort him home last Friday.  We then formed our line in front of him and rendered a hand salute which he smartly returned.

We were then invited inside to grab something cold and something to eat.  We sat with the family for about an hour simply enjoying their joy at having their son home safe.  I did hear something about incredible meat balls, I think it came from Charlie.  As more of their family and friends began to arrive, we decided we should depart so as not to get in the way.  As we went outside to saddle up, Charlie took down his Marine Corps flag, had us all sign it and presented it to Domenick.    The family came out to hear the bikes as we departed and to say goodby.  Dom’s mother Carolyn was sad to see us go but not as sad as she was to see the motorcycles go.  She loves Harley’s.

I wish to thank all who attended for giving up part of their day in order to thank a Marine and his family for their sacrifice.  I especially want to thank the DiPaolo family for honoring the Warriors Watch Riders with an invitation to join them on this happy occasion.