News-Info-Alerts

Re: Rolling Thunder Rolls On

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: April 23, 2003

"Group organizes for military MIAs, POWs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SIOUX FALLS -South Dakota now has an official voice in an effort to urge the U.S. government to continue searching for military personnel missing in action or taken as prisoners of war.

Rolling Thunder's national office granted a charter this month to Rolling Thunder Chapter 1 of South Dakota.

''The stronger we get as an organization throughout the country, the more our thoughts get in front of Congress,'' said chapter president Dick Johnson, 58, of Sioux Falls. ''Our goal is not ever to forget anybody who is taken prisoner or missing in war.''

Rolling Thunder gathers every Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C., arriving on motorcycles to march and demonstrate.

For the past 15 years, they have announced their arrival with the roar of their motorcycles - not unlike the sound of the 1965 bombing campaign against North Vietnam dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder, organization leaders say.

Johnson and other South Dakotans have gone to Washington the last three years. It's not a motorcycle rally, he said.

''We're not a club for motorcyclists,'' Johnson said. ''Our interest is strictly POWs and MIAs.''

About 20 South Dakota chapter members intend to ride to Washington this year, including Simon Koster, American Legion post commander in Worthington, Minn. He thinks POWs are in Vietnam.

''They haven't recovered all of our soldiers that are still there,'' Koster, 57, said. ''I believe there are some there still alive. And there are many that are dead and haven't been recovered. Our government has let us down by not bringing them home.''

Johnson said Rolling Thunder will promote its cause at events in South Dakota.

The chapter has discussed working with the Marine Corps League to give away coffee, cookies and literature on POWs and MIAs at an Interstate 90 rest stop, most likely during the week of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally."