MEMORIAL DAY: WASHINGTON 2011

Band of Brothers

Vietnam veterans outside the Lincoln Memorial after many rode from the Pentagon to the National Mall. Defense Dept. photo by Linda Hosek

Every Memorial Day weekend, thousands of motorcycle-riding veterans — many from the Vietnam era — descend on the nation’s capital to remember the fallen as well as the missing in action and prisoners of war who never came home.

On Memorial Day, which grew out of the custom of decorating the graves of Civil War dead, Americans are asked to remember those heroes and all those who have died in every U.S. conflict since.

These grizzled, hard-looking men were once the boys who went overseas to fight for their country in wars too many have already forgotten.

Their commitment is probably best reflected in the words of Shakespeare, who  described comrades in arms from another, earlier war in one of the most stirring speeches ever written: “We few, we happy few. We band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me is my brother.”

To see a slide show of the Rolling Thunder Event, click here and here.