Vietnam vet resigns from motorcycle club over POW status dispute
By Jim Warren
Ron Bump has resigned from Lexington's Bopsters Motorcycle Club in the wake of reports that he was not a prisoner of war in Vietnam as he had claimed.
Bopsters president Billy Adams said Thursday that club officials asked for and received Bump's resignation after learning that he was not on the U.S. Defense Department's official list of prisoners of war from Vietnam. Club members were unaware that he wasn't on the list, Adams said.
"It was something our club couldn't tolerate," Adams said. "We're all for the POW-MIAs and we do a lot of work with the POW-MIAS. We are a charity club; we help the police department, the fire department and other organizations."
Bump served in Vietnam in 1968-70. He said he was captured and held as a prisoner of war after the Army helicopter he was on was shot down.
A photograph of Bump, identifying him as a former prisoner of war, appeared on the front page of the Herald-Leader on Monday. He was in Washington with other Bopsters members attending an annual gathering of cycle groups at the Vietnam Memorial.
After the picture appeared, however, the newspaper received calls and e-mails from several people questioning Bump's prisoner-of-war status. A check of the Defense Department POW list turned up no one named Bump.