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From the Gazeebo...  

WWR: Activism + Visibility = Awareness

Last week a major newspaper published an editioral writting by a college professor named (appropriatly) Marx. In this editorial Professor Marx was complaining about the sight of the POW/MIA flag that he had seen here and there over the Memorial Day weekend. While the good professor graciously allowd that it was OK to display Old Glory on that weekend, the black and white POW/MIA Flag was "ugly." The professor also wrote that the POW flag was a symbol of pro-war people, and that it has "limited meaning." He suggested we come up with a new Memorial Day flag with things like puppies and rainbows and butterflies, or something like that.

I'm not going to print the web address of the piece, or Marx's email address, because I don't believe that sort of drivel warrants that much attention. (I wrote a rebuttal which the editors refused to publish.) Instead I just want to use this to make a larger point - the importance of education and public awareness.

Professor Marx's editoral was written from a position of almost unbelieveable cultural ignorance. This is the problem with tenured college professors who never have the need to live in the real world - they go from school to a higher school to a job teaching school. And these are the people with whom we entrust the minds of our children - people who live in a sheltered world of theory and idealism.

So our own kids often go through school never learning the truth about recent history, never knowing what it means to sacrifice and defend a nation or an ideal. They are being taught by people with no practical experience in life, and then we are surprised when they turn out with no sense of history or American culture. I don't know how many times a teenager or even a 20-something has said to me, when he saw a POW/MIA hat or jacket on me, "What does "Pow-Meeya" mean?

We are raising new generations who have no idea that over one thousand seven hundred American boys went off to war in Vietnam and were never heard from again. Fates unknown. Taken prisoner and died in prison, shot down over the jungles and gone, left wounded on a bloody battlefield - just plain gone.

That is seventeen hundred families - fathers and mothers and wives and children who watched their loved ones go off to war and will never know what happened to them, who will themselves go to their graves never learning what happened to them.

As of February 2009 there are 93,146 American Heros who remain unaccounted for. Most of them will never be found, identified, find "closure." But many of them WILL be found - remains identified or recovered, and those lucky families will finally know for sure. But make no mistake - the only reason this will happen for some is the pressure that those of us who care put on our government to make an accounting. The easy thing would be to forget it, to sweep it all under the rug. But pressure keeps that from happening, and it is the pressure of the POW/MIA flag.

That flag is the only flag that has ever flown in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda other than the American Flag. Far from being a flag of "limited meaning" as the snotty, ignorant professor asserts, it means EVERYTHING to those who fought in good faith for a nation that did not keep faith with them in return. It is a symbol, not only of the missing in action, but of a dark and shameful period of American history - the 1960s and 1970s. A time when there were no Welcome Home parades for soldiers and when a weak and corrupt government caved in to pressure from anti-American activists at the expense of those who risked and gave their very lives.

If you live in or near Philadelphia, this coming Sunday June 7th is the 20th Anniversary "Ride for Freedom" sponsored by the Friends of the Forgotten, a POW/MIA Awareness group of which I am a member. If you can possibly make it, please do. This ride normally attracts around two thousand riders. It will begin with a very short ceremony in the Norristown High School parking lot, the ride will leave at 11:30pm sharp, and it will end in Valley Forge, where a 45 minute ceremony honoring our POWs will be held.

This ride is not a paying ride - there is no registration fee. The purpose of the ride is education and awareness. The schools are not teaching our children about the Vietnam War, about POWs and MIAs, or about the importance of supporting those who fight for us today. That leaves it to people like us to keep the knowledge alive, the importance of never again abandoning an American soldier or veteran. Go out, take part in public ceremonies, ride your bike with flags flying - do this all the time, not just on special days. Be visilbe, be an activist - raise awareness and educate, to ensure that future generations never forget, and even more importantly, that they do not repeat our mistakes.

The purpose of a large motorcycle ride like the Ride for Freedom this weekend is visibility. Visibility creates awareness. We, the Warriors' Watch Riders, are not a motorcycle club, but we also use our motorcycles as a tool - a visibility tool. We ride them and wear our vests and fly our flags for the express purpose of drawing public attention to what we are doing. When we do a Welcome Home escort for a soldier, we want the public to see us, because we want the public to understand how important it is that we not abandon this generation of military heros. When you go out and take part in a motorcycle escort for a homecoming soldier, you are educating the public by raising awareness. You are an activist, and by using your bikes and vests and flags and patches, you are a highly visible activist. Activism plus high visibility translates to public awareness.

You do what you do for the best of all possible reasons - to ensure that this nation never again loses faith with those who go off to fight in good faith. The Vietnam Veterans of America founding principle is "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another." I might add to that, for the Warriors' Watch, "never again will one generation of Americans fail to educate the next." In that way and in that way alone can we ensure that sactifice and nobility will never be taken for granted, or worse, ignored, or worst of all, scorned.

Warriors' Watch Riders "Store"

There are a few new items in the WWR "Store," including some new patches. These are intended for those who wish to display a direct "welcome home troops" theme but without necessarily having the WWR name on them. We also have a stock of standard gold-trimmed American Flag shoulder patches.

Check it out here, and remember that we do not run the WWR store to make a profit, we do it to give you a place to get stuff with which to proudly display your WWR affiliation. Some of it we buy in bulk and pass on to you. That includes things like the WWR Honor Coins, patches, hats and flag covers and such. Other stuff we link you directly to the supplier, if we have an agreement with them to support us by giving you small-quantity items for big-quantity prices. That includes things like WWR flags, windshield banners, and shirts and the like. THE WWR HAS NO MONEY OF ITS OWN. THE WWR DOES NOT SOLICIT NOR DO WE ACCEPT DONATIONS.

Following are the mission itineraries for the CONFIRMED MISSIONS coming up this week, followed by a list of upcoming missions and sanctioned events. PLEASE BE SURE TO CHECK THE FORUM LINKS FOR THESE MISSIONS PRIOR TO HEADING OUT, for last minute changes, updates and times.

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR WARRIORS! TOGETHER WE ARE CHANGING THE CULTURE - ONE WARRIOR AT A TIME!

MISSION PLANNING - WEEK OF THURSDAY, JUNE 4THROUGH WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10

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CONFIRMED MISISONS

SNJ, 06/03 Short Notice Double Header, Marlton

SEPA, 6/4 , 6/5 VERY SHORT NOTICE HONOR MISSION

SANCTIONED EVENTS

Friends Of The Forgotten, Ride For Freedom 6/07/09

All of the above threads can be viewed even if you are not registered on the fourms. However, if you have NOT YET REGISTERED ON THE FORUMS, PLEASE DO SO NOW to ensure that you do not miss any of the excitement, planning and discussion of this upcoming activity! Click on this link and register on the forums now!

Until then: MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS THIS, STILL THE GREATEST NATION ON EARTH, AND ALL OF THOSE WHO DO, HAVE, OR WILL DEFEND HER, AT HOME AND ABROAD.

- Wayne Lutz

*This newsletter is named "The Weekly Ride" or "The Ride", for short, in memory of and to honor Sgt. Jennifer Hartman, U.S. Army. Sgt. Hartman was killed in Iraq by America's enemies. She died in defense of our freedom at the age of 20. This quote from Jennifer was read at her graveside:

"It's not about what happened in the past. It's not about what might happen in the future. It's about the ride, for Christ's sake."

Click here for a Tribute to Sgt. Jennifer Hartman: "The Ride"