Local chapter of POW/MIA activist group working from Fayette base

“I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy.”

This is the well-known creed of Army Rangers. This also is the creed of Rolling Thunder, a nonprofit organization that will not rest as long as one soldier remains missing and unaccounted for.

From its beginnings in 1987 in a little diner in Somerville, N.J., members of Rolling Thunder admittedly live the oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” On Memorial Day weekend in 1988, nearly 2,500 motorcycles from around America converged on Washington, D.C. in a show of unity and concern for their missing comrades and to demand a full accounting of all POW/MIAs by the nation’s leaders. Their entry into Washington on the roar of 2,500 Harley Davidson motorcycles, a sound not unlike the 1965 bombing campaign against North Vietnam dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder, quickly lent itself to their cause, their mission, their creed. The name stuck. On that day the foundation for the annual Ride for Freedom, the Ride to the Wall, was born.

Rolling Thunder’s national membership today totals more than 8,000. Now years later, in 2005, the North Georgia chapter of Rolling Thunder, Georgia Chapter 3 based in Fayette County, is keeping the mission and the faith alive. For Fayetteville’s Glenn Nichols and the other members of the North Georgia chapter, the mission is simple and clear. The mission is to “Correct the Past and Protect the Future.”

“We are a POW/MIA activist organization. We demonstrate in Washington each year but we haven’t been covered by the news media very much until this last year when they had the whole thing on C-SPAN. We’re veterans’ advocates, we spend a lot of time over in the VA Hospital in Atlanta and we do a lot with homeless veterans,” Nichols explained. “What we’d like to do locally is to participate in local events like July 4 and Veteran’s Day activities. We think it’s important to educate people about the POW/MIA situation. I’m sure that many people don’t know that there are more than 1,800 missing in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. That’s how many we left over there when we pulled out.

“We want accountability. If they are not alive we want to know where their bodies are. Their families want accountability. This is not just true for Vietnam. It’s for everybody that’s been left behind. After every war, the United States has walked off and left our people. And we’d like to prevent that from happening in the future, for future generations. If you go to war, even if you’re killed, you want your family to be able to know what happened to you, so they can have some closure. And if you’re a POW you want to know our country is coming to look for you.”

Nichols said the formation of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) under the U.S. Department of Defense have made headway in locating and identifying remains of American soldiers left behind. Several soldiers missing from the Vietnam War have been located, as recently as August. Their bodies will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, he said. And for those left behind, the decades that have passed, the politics of reluctance on both sides of the Pacific and the rapid, terrain-altering growth of the jungle itself makes discovering the whereabouts of MIAs increasingly complicated.

“We want our government to take care of our soldiers and sailors and airmen. If they are captured, go get them and bring them home. If they’ve died some place, bring them home while you can still find them. There is no reason why this can’t be done,” Nichols implored. “A lot of commanders in the Vietnam War did not leave the battlefield unless every one of their people were accounted for. But the United States pulled out and left all those people, not knowing what happened to them; back then there was a good opportunity to find out what happened to them. Now we’re working on finding them based on things like a little piece of clothing.”
“Almost every combat veteran that’s joined Rolling Thunder has kept things bottled up inside him for 30-40 years. This group is a release for them. And that release really happens at the (Vietnam War Memorial) Wall. That wall is magic,” Nichols said, with a look on his face that carried decades of emotions. “Many that came home from Vietnam came home to Americans that were spitting on them. We were told not to wear our uniforms on the streets. That wasn’t exactly the thank you people were looking for coming back from Southeast Asia. And it really had an impact. Along with problems that naturally occur from action on the battlefield, to have your country send you then turn against you for being there. Some of those guys have had a lot of trouble dealing with that and some haven’t dealt with it yet.”

One of the many left behind was Brooks resident USAF Sgt. Gary Pate. Assigned to the 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron at Ubon Airbase in Thailand, Pate was listed missing in action May 22, 1968, when the flight he was assigned to did not return from its mission over Laos. It is the reality of the fate of those like Pate that forms the glue that binds memory to mission. For the soldiers of Rolling Thunder the mission is clear: Bring them home.

One of those who came home was Canton resident John Hodgson, another member of the local Rolling Thunder chapter. Hodgson was assigned to the 20th Engineering Brigade as a reporter/photographer during 1968-1969. He worked with the 9th Infantry and Special Forces on the Cambodian border. He made hometown news reports, taking photos and writing stories about the efforts of those he covered, including the Navy River Rats, sending the information back to the hometown newspapers of the soldiers he covered. He worked with the Army Times and other publications. Hodgson also worked with the brigade to build roads in the Mekong Delta.

While in Vietnam, Hodgson was awarded the Bronze Star. Asked about the award at a recent chapter meeting in Peachtree City, Hodgson quickly routed his answer away from himself and his heroism, transferring it instead onto the needs of others. His response was trademark Rolling Thunder.

“It dealt with helping some guys out of a fix they were in. And we all pulled together and most of us made it out, that’s really what it’s all about,” Hodgson said quietly. Hodgson’s imposing physical stature was dwarfed by the size of his heart and the words that flowed from it. “You lose some good friends and you never forget it. Everybody thinks it’s heroism, but it’s nothing to do with that. You just do what you have to do when you are called upon to do it, without thinking.”

Now back at home decades later, the thinking of Rolling Thunder members is also with those fighting today. Those soldiers, too, Nichols said, deserve America’s support. For the members of Rolling Thunder, some of the anti-war expressions around the country today are a potent reminder of the public sentiment that arose during and after Vietnam.

“One big reason to get our message out is because of what’s going on now with the group that’s anti-war,’ Nichols said. “Just like with Vietnam, the time for anti-war is before the war starts. Once our troops are in battle you’ve got to get behind them and support them. Otherwise, you’re enabling the enemy. Those terrorists over there know what’s going on over here. When the American people can be turned against the war it gets them moving that much more, then you get more IEDs (improvised explosive devices) set along the road to kill more American soldiers. The same thing happened in ’Nam.”

Rolling Thunder’s mission statement vows that its major function is to publicize the POW/MIA issue; to educate the public that many American prisoners of war were left behind after all past wars; to help correct the past and protect future veterans from being left behind should they become prisoners of war or missing in action; and be committed to helping American veterans from all wars.

“Rolling Thunder is a great organization for vets and for active-duty people. You can’t forget the troops that are over there and the ones that are lost. We’ve got to keep trying to look for them and find them. We can’t leave people in a foreign country. And when these guys come back from the military, from Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam or Korea, the public owes them a great deal of debt,” Hodgson said. “A lot of them put their lives on hold, a lot of them give their lives. Some people find it hard to see that. But if you don’t stop it on somebody else’s land it’ll be on yours, like it was in 9/11. I’d much rather fight a war in some other country than in the United States.”

Rolling Thunder was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1995 and is headquartered in New Jersey. Today the organization has over 8,000 members throughout the United States and Canada. There are more than 80 Rolling Thunder chapters in the continental United States. Those numbers are growing.

Laws passed through Rolling Thunder endeavors include the Missing Service Personnel Act of 1997, Bring Them Home Alive Act of 2000, Persian Gulf War POW/MIA Accountability Act enacted in October 2002, Displaying the POW/MIA Flag over federal and military facilities and flying the POW/MIA Flag over war memorials, passed in 2002.

The local chapter of Rolling Thunder is interested in having veterans from Fayette and surrounding counties join their ranks. Rolling Thunder can be reached at www.rollingthunderincga3.com or by contacting Glenn Nichols at 770-461-0424.

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