[Photos courtesy of Washington Post]
Photo -
Rick Bowmer &endash;
AP
With police escort, participants in the Rolling Thunder Rally cross the
Memorial Bridge into Washington, D.C. The 13th annual rally calls for recognition
and remembrance of prisoners of war and those soldiers still missing in action
from the Vietnam War
Photo - James A. Parcell - The Post
Miss America joins the vets of Rolling Thunder for their
annual Memorial Weekend ride.
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Bikers wave flags and flash peace signs while rolling down Constitution
Avenue toward the Lincoln Memorial.
Photo - James A. Parcell &endash; The Washington Post
Many people cheer the bikers as they ride from the Pentagon
to the Lincoln Memorial. 
Photo - James A. Parcell &endash; The Washington
Post
Miss America, Heather French, talks with Gary H. Westra at the Lincoln
Memorial. Miss America rode in this year's Rolling Thunder Rally with her
father,
Ron French, left.
Photo - James A. Parcell &endash; The Washington
Post
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Bikers ride across the Memorial Bridge in route to the Lincoln Memorial via Constitution Avenue.
Photo - James A. Parcell &endash; The Washington
Post
Thom Shortt of New Hope, Pa., kneels at the wall of the Vietnam War Memorial
during the Rolling Thunder Rally. Shortt was with the 1st Marines in Vietnam.
Photo - Don Wright
&endash; AFP
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Bobby Brandon of Brooklyn, N.Y., left, hugs Jeff Annicelli of Fairfield,
N.J., at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
Photo - Rick Bowmer &endash;
AP
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Disabled veteran Barry Bonneville of Erlanger, Ky., raises his fist as
bikers ride down Constitution Avenue. Bonneville was wounded while serving
in Cambodia
Photo - James A. Parcell &endash; The Washington
Post
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An American flag was placed in the Statue of the Three Servicemen at the
Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
Photo -
Rick Bowmer &endash;
AP
By Linda Perlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 29, 2000; Page A01
Thunder procession into the city,
atop a three-wheeled, red-white-and-blue motorcycle, her hand not waving
that curvy beauty-queen wave but rather forming a fist and pumping high in
solidarity with the veterans alongside her.
At first thought, it may seem that there's little to connect Miss America--this Phyllis George look-alike whose grace, robust rendition of an Andrew Lloyd Webber ballad and 13 years of pageant practice helped nab her the tiara in September--to the thousands of leather-clad, long-haired veterans who stormed into town on polished, rumbling motorcycles for the 13th annual Rolling Thunder rally yesterday.
Heather Renee French, 25, of Maysville, Ky., paints, she listens to jazz, she designs clothing, including the strapless periwinkle gown she wore at the pageant. But, like all Miss Americas, she also has a platform. Hers is veterans, particularly homeless ones. Her brother and sister serve in the military. Her father, a Marine, was punctured by a bullet in Vietnam and has been hobbled by arthritis ever since, and she's been tagging along with him to veterans hospitals since she was 4.
"My dad," she said, "wasn't the only one struggling."
Ron French said that his daughter carries the war with her, too, in the form of an Agent Orange rash on her stomach, a result of his exposure.
So when she shows up for an event like this, it's far more than a glamour-girl-does-USO kind of experience. She spent hours before the rally hugging and kissing veterans in the Pentagon parking lot, signing her name--and a heart--in silver ink on their black leather vests, amid patches with messages like "In Memory of Cheapshot" and "Bring Them Home."
Rolling Thunder's primary purpose is to plead for the return of American prisoners of war and those missing in action. Vet-bikers from divisions all over the country roll into town--and then from the Pentagon to the Wall--every Memorial Day weekend. Starting at noon, the riders clogged the Memorial Bridge four abreast for more than an hour and were still straggling in until dinner time.
Tens of thousands of veterans filled the area from the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial, sprawled on the steps of various federal buildings, crammed vacant fields with their bikes and wandered up and down the Mall. They visited vans promising "Find Your Buddies Now" and bought pins from vendors and cooked out on 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue. At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, they rubbed over names and slipped the papers in the bag with the others, and they knelt and sniffled as their wives gently touched their shoulders.
They had arrived on bikes with POW-MIA flags flapping and license plates like WIZRD and DRTBG, men with gray beards splaying in the wind and women upright behind them. Riding over the bridge on her trike, French's eyes teared up.
The trike was custom-made. It wouldn't be proper for Miss America to straddle a hog, but "it's not just that," she said. "My fiance is an orthopedic surgeon, and he deals in the trauma unit. He's a little leery. And the vets were among the first to say, 'Maybe you shouldn't ride on the back of the bike.' "
She wore motorcycle boots and a cropped denim Rolling Thunder vest with patches and a "My Dad Served in Vietnam" pin, over a POW-MIA T-shirt. She had on--as always--a bracelet honoring a missing major from Louisville. The only glitz on her was a brooch shaped like the tiara she never wears and an emerald-cut diamond ring from her fiance, Kentucky Lt. Gov. Steve Henry.
The veterans are thrilled by French's attention--they know she has testified before Congress and state legislatures, visited shelters and helped get homes built for homeless vets--and several got misty merely at her introduction.
When Britt Small, 53, a former military police officer who leads a vet-rock band out of Skidmore, Mo., found out Miss America was going to travel the country talking about homeless vets--which French admitted at the time was "not the prettiest platform"--"I just about dropped dead." Before French addressed the crowd in front of the Reflecting Pool, Small approached her in his fringed white leather jacket and red hair flowing from beneath his beret and said emotionally: "Thank you very much for your stand on Vietnam veterans. I'm so thrilled with you coming out with that."
A growing concern for veterans is hepatitis C, which the government estimates infects as many as 10 percent of Vietnam vets--and can go decades without being detected before it begins destroying liver function. At Rolling Thunder, veterans could get their finger pricked for a test and a chance to win a Harley.
"You ain't getting a Purple Heart for that," one burly veteran kidded another, who cringed after the supposedly painless test.
French told the vets that they owe it to their fallen brothers and their living ones to get tested. And she urged a full accounting of American prisoners of war and those missing in action.
"It's time to bring them home!" she shouted.
As she spoke, veterans such as Ward Eysaman nodded their heads in understanding.
"She's impressive," said Eysaman, 53, who rode in from Havelock, N.C. "She cares from the heart. She is sincere."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
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