Submitted by Steve Golding
"The Truth is Incontrovertible.
Malice May Attack It.
Ignorance May Deride It.
But, In The End. . .
There It Is!"
- Winston Churchill
Between Memorial Day through the end of June is always a busy time for us. Rolling Thunder is Washington over the Memorial Day Weekend is a time that we get the 3 minutes of national spotlight. We coordinate demonstrations in front of the official home of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington and then we are on the Mall across from the Lincoln Memorial helping out with the Tiger cages.
Then it is on to New Hampshire in mid-June to attend America's Longest Uninteruppted Candlelight Vigil that happens to coincide with "Bike Week" in this tiny New England community. Bob Jones, of the NE POW Network, (no relation to the former DASD Jones of DPMO), has held this candlelight vigil every Thuirsday evening for the last 12 years. (See Vigil)
It all culminates with the annual Family Meetings in Washington DC. The National Alliance of Families met at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Crystal City and the National League of Families met at the Doubletree Hotel at Crystal City. They were in walking distance of each other and there were courtesy vans that took people back and forth in the humidity of the Washington DC area.
Here now is my report on the National Alliance of Families Meeting.
The Trip
I left Brooklyn NY at around 11:00 PM on 20 June. I was to stop in Hazlet, New Jersey to pick up Dave Murray and on to Arlington, Virginia where the Crown Plaza Crystal City is located. Of course, a main bridge that connects New York and New Jersey was closed for repair so the directions that I got to Dave's home were out the window. The 35 mile drive took a little over an hour.
We took 295 to the Delaware Memorial Bridge to 95 South and the trip through Delaware was uneventful. Once in Delaware, we pulled into a truck stop to take care of bodily functions, get something to eat and coffee for the road. On pulling out of the truck stop my wheel began fighting me and I heard a noise as if we were riding on speed ridges that they cut into the road. You guessed it, my rear tire had blown out. It was now 2:30 AM.
We pulled the luggage out of the trunk, and Dave set about jacking up the car. I loosend the lugs on the tire and Dave cautioned me not to remove them totally because he did not like the way the jack was leaning. As he said that the car rolled forward. He lowered the jack, re positioned it and relifted the car. We took the tire off and there was a hole ripped on the back side of the tire, meaning that it was not repairable. We put the donut on, put the luggage in the back seat of the car and we went to find the nearest place to get a new tire.
We were nearly through Delaware so we hit the toll entering Maryland and I asked the toll collector where we could get a flat fixed. She directed us to get off the next exit where there was a major truck stop. At the truck stop they told us to get back on to 95 North and to stop at the Chesapeake House, a truck stop on the highway. I drove at 50 MPH to the truck stop and anyone that knows me knows that I simply cannot drive at 50MPH!
Earl, the attendant at the garage/convenience shop took a look at my tire. My tire size is 185-60-R14. Earl did his best, but he had no 185-60-R14s. The closest he had was 185-65-R14. $140.00 later, I had a new tire on my car, albeit not quite the correct size, but it wouldn't hurt the car for a few days that I would be in DC. I would make due with it until I got back to NY where I would change the rear tires, put this new one as the spare and get rid of the donut altogether.
We got back on the road at 4:00 AM and headed due north to Arlington. We arrived at the Crown Plaza Hotel at 5:45 AM only to find that our reserved room was not yet ready. They advised us to come back at 7AM. We checked our luggage with the hotel concierge and I went to pack the car in the hotel garage. We were tired, hungry and feeling very homeless.
Dave was sitting on a bench just outside the hotel entrance and was talking with someone. As I came up, the gentleman he was talking to turned around. It was Jerry Mooney, who would be speaking at the Alliance Meeting. Jerry is a former NSA analyst who tried to get the USG to see that there were transfers of American POWs to Russia during the Vietnam War. He is the analyst that correlated the Vietnamese transmissions to the Baron 52 shootdown, showing that the back-enders were captured by the Vietnamese. The USG later debunked his analysis as a "lost convoy" who had been travelling with personnel from a priuor shootdown. Baron 52 was our only loss that day and the Vietnamese were hardly likely to get lost in their own back yard!
We spoke with Jerry until a little after 7 when we tried to check in again. As we entered the hotel, Carol Hrdlicka was coming out and we greeted each other. Thenit was on to the front desk to visit with Elsa and see if we could check in yet. No luck. We were told to come back at 8AM, the room would be clean and ready we were assured. By this time, however, the hotel restaurant was open so we went to have breakfast.
At 8AM, Elsa informed us that the room was still not ready. I told her I needed to apply my Preparation H or I would die. She got on the radio and asked them to expedite the room. My eyes were closing and the park-type bench began looking real cozy. At 8:30AM I proposed marriage to Elsa. Dave told her I was rich, having just hit the lottery. Hotel personnel overhearing the proposal and lottery luck began joining in, as if old friends, but we still had no friggin' room! We decided to sit in the arm chairs just before the front desk to be a constant reminder to our newly found friends who were refusing to put us up.
At 9 AM the toom was ready and we went to settle in. I took a shower and was in bed by 10. By this time I had been up for 28 hours. I was woken at noon by Gunny Fallon. He took Amtrak into Union Station in DC and was to call my cell when he got in. My cell was charging and I did not hear it because it was off. He took the metro to Crystal City and walked the 1-1/2 blocks to the hotel. "Why do you tell me to call you on your cell if you don't answer it?!" I needed to buy some video tape so I could tape the Alliance Meeting and so I got back in the shower, changed and off we went to the nearby Mall to get some tape and have lunch with Gunny.
We got back to the hotel at 3PM and Gunny took his Irish Whistle out and started playing. I fell back asleep as he was playing "Danny Boy," and slept like a baby until 5. We got up and prepared for the Alliance Meeting's evening session. We took the video equipment downstairs to set it up and it was at this time that I realized I neglected to pack the battery charger or adapter. Luckily, Gunny has a camera that is very much like mine and he leant me his adapter which worked like a charm. Thank you Gunny!
We then milled around the lobby of the hotel greeting the various people that were starting to assemble for the meeting. Sharon Barnett, Greasy Belcher, Lynn O'Shea, Dolores Alfond-Apodaca, Ann Holland), The Milliners, Jack and Wilma Lauffer, Sam Cretaro, Pat and Steve Cressman, Victoria Wallace, Jerry Mooney, Carol Hrdlicka, Roger Hall, Mike McDaniel (Red's son), Mark Sauter, John Leboutillier, Chris Rich and Diane Moore-Rich, Grits Dunton and Susan, Dennis and Diane Johnson as well as others whose names escape me at this writing.
Lynn gave us the two minute warning so we all went into the meeting room.
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