Welnick: An army dressed in black

The red letters on the hotel alarm clock read 5:23 a.m. I rolled back, head cushioned by the pillow, and my eyes stared at the dark ceiling. I heard the deep bass of a Harley-Davidson hacking to life outside, sputtering like a smoker’s cough. The familiar chugging vibrated the quiet Sunday morning. I got up and peeked out of the curtain. On both sides of the Holiday Inn sign were double rows of Harleys, stacked like cords of wood waiting to be lit on fire.

Walking in the night before, I had felt like an alien wading through a sea of black-vested Harley owners. They packed the hotel grounds like a sea of ants — soldiers waiting for a mission. Many clutched their bottles of beer like a rifle in a fox hole.

I paused to watch a tall man in a worn black vest and black leather pants. He holds his back straight, but his face is haggard with years, and he hobbles by with a limp, bracing a withered leg with a wooden cane. He has a receding hairline, and his thinning hair hangs to his mid-back. I think that this is a strange-looking assortment of senior citizens trying to be 20-year-olds. But there is no youthful silliness, no loud talking or childish jesting.

As I step into the crowd, to enter the lobby, I witness two grizzly faced, black-vested bikers embrace, like brothers who have been separated by years. There is a quiet roar, voices simmering in unison like a fast-flowing mountain stream. The vast lobby is packed with countless others also dressed in black vests with bright, colorful Vietnam vet patches — uniforms uniting them into one.

I have been engulfed by a convention of Vietnam veteran bikers.

I expect myself to be afraid of this hoard of rough-looking characters, but I am struck by something deeper that I do not expect. I sense a cloud of warmth that soothes a scratchy throat like cough syrup, as these bands of brothers unite. These unlikely companions have been bonded by the battlefield of hardship and tossed aside as a nightmare that society wants to forget. My heart aches for these tortured souls, and anger bristles up my spine. In my mind, I can see someone spitting at one of these vets returning from the jungles of Vietnam. I see these somber faces cast aside like used cat litter. Here they cling to sanity as their nightmare haunts them, chasing them towards an abyss.

There is no media coverage here. There are no talking heads on CNN or Fox News, stirring up the emotions. These soldiers have been marked by society as unimportant, cast aside as trash in a football stadium after the big game.

Looking out the hotel window the next morning, a deep stirring twisted my gut. As a Harley coughed to life, I saw a lonely figure dressed in black. The street light momentarily illuminated a somber expression and hunched shoulders.

A tear rolled down my cheek as I watched the solitary figure chug out of the parking lot and disappear into the forgotten landscape.

A whisper escaped my throat: “God bless these men.”

This story was originally published May 25, 2015 at 12:06 AM.