Veterans Rally Article 2010

Veterans Rally Returns To Cripple Creek
Submitted by theboss on Fri, 09/03/2010 - 11:56am. Features

By Tim Anderson

Who says you can’t go home again?

After a three-year hiatus, Colorado’s 18th Annual Salute to American Veterans returned to Cripple Creek in force.

Some 35,000 people—most of them riding motorcycles—swarmed the small valley that is home to the historic gold camp. It was a homecoming.

There was a familiar feeling riding up highway 67 towards Cripple Creek. The soothing rumble of motorcycles bounced off the hillsides, warm sunshine bathed everything, and the occasional mine remnant peeked through the aspens. What were not familiar, was the groups of people all along highway 67. They waved and cheered the hundreds--thousands—of bikers, as they roared past. Closer to town, a couple sat on the side of the road, strategically perched in a curve, holding a big home made sign that read, “WELCOME BACK.”

Then, cresting the hill above the old mining camp, and rolling down the hill towards town, it hits: this does feel like home.

Cripple Creek sat at the bottom of the hill, arms open, welcoming back the bike rally that had made its home there for so long.

“I can’t begin to tell you how happy we are to be back in Cripple Creek,” said event organizer Jim Wear of Pro Promotions. “It felt like coming home. This is something that was meant to be.”

Once, Cripple Creek was the richest town in the west. On August 20th, 21st, and 22nd, it was again. The riches were not minerals, measured in weight and carat, but were hospitality and goodwill, measured in genuineness and gratitude.

“I don’t know why they ever left Cripple Creek and went to Winter Park,” said Al Mulvane, a navy Vet who served in Vietnam. “This has always been a great place to come. There’s something honest about it (Cripple Creek). Hopefully, they’ve got all their problems worked out and we can just come back up here every year. Winter Park was OK, but we need to be in Cripple Creek.”

The Salute to American Veterans Rally was held in Cripple Creek for many years, until 2007, when difficulties between the then mayor, mayor pro-tem and the event organizers resulted in a three-year move to Winter Park.

“Looking at it now, after we’ve come back to Cripple Creek, going to Winter Park and coming back now might be the best thing that could have happened for the rally,” Wear explained. “The way it’s all worked out, we’re much more comfortable and enthused about Cripple Creek than we’ve ever been. There was a genuine spirit of cooperation this year. We all were working to accomplish the same thing.”

“We are very excited to have the rally come back,” said Cripple Creek City Administrator Ray White. “It was a great success. We’ve had lots of positive feedback, and all the events were first rate.”

White said the community wanted the rally back.

“We’ve hosted the rally for so long we felt like we had some ownership,” White said. “We’re happy to have it back. It’s a good fit, really. When all those bikes came rolling into town it was like seeing family you haven’t seen for a long time. And then, we were able to have a great, safe event.”

It was a great event. While the mining camp quickly filled up with bikes and bikers and veterans of every sort, another gathering was taking place 37 miles away in Woodland Park. There, at least 5000 bikes staged for the 23rd Annual POW/MIA Remembrance Ride.

“This is friggin’ awesome!” exclaimed Mary Beth Lewis of Aurora. “How cool is this? All these bikes, and all these people, here to pay tribute to all our veterans and prisoners of war…. This is just cool, man!”

Lewis served four years in the Air Force before marrying her husband of 23 years, Mike, a now-retired Army sergeant first class.

The police-escorted ride followed Highway 24 and Colorado 67 to Cripple Creek, before descending into town, leaving no doubt this is a veteran’s event…and a bike event. The Colorado State Patrol measured the ride this year at eleven miles of bikes, riding two abreast, in tight formation. By any measure, that’s a lot of motorcycles.

While the POW/MIA Ride was snaking towards Cripple Creek, the traditional parade made its way down the main drag. Several thousand people lined Bennett Avenue for the parade, which featured former WW II Prisoners Of War, visiting dignitaries, active duty military personnel, the Fort Carson Mounted Honor Guard, and bits of Cripple Creek’s colorful history, among other attractions.

At the end of the parade, the POW/MIA Ride fell into line, setting off a loud, thundering, and crowd-pleasing announcement of arrival home.

“There were people lined up five or six deep all the way down the street to get a look at the ride coming in,” said White. “It was really something else.”

“We had bikes coming in for a full 40 minutes,” said Wear. “It seemed like forever. I don’t know where they all parked, but there were a lot of ‘em.”

The lengthy parade of bikes delayed the ceremony in City Park by a few minutes. The ceremony featured an escort by the US NORAD/NORTHCOM Joint Color Guard, a Marine rifle escort, the POW/MIA Remembrance Ceremony, the recognition of the original Patriot Guard Riders from Kansas, recognition of POWs from WWII, and Korea, an address by Fort Carson Chief of Staff Colonel Lee Fetterman, and the recognition of four Wounded Warriors from A Company, 4th Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, from Fort Carson. All four were wounded in Afghanistan.

“I’ve got to tell you,” said Colonel Fetterman, “I’ve been to several events like this, and this is the best executed event of this size I’ve ever been to.”

As the city park ceremony continued, a bright red MIG-17, owned and piloted by 83-year-old Air Force Vet Jack Wilhite, made a couple passes overhead, throwing in a barrel roll while trailing smoke as he left. Another aircraft owned by Wilhite, a WWII era Navy T-6 Warbird, lingered overhead in perfect blue skies.

When the ceremony wrapped up, everyone drifted off to different parts of town, pursuing whatever interested them. It also meant a little bit of partying was going to get started.

About seven miles away, over in Victor, a gold town that once surpassed Cripple Creek in both riches and population, there was a slightly more somber tone out in the Gold Bowl--the town athletic field. There, the city allowed the Traveling Vietnam Memorial to be set up, creating a different mood...one slightly different from what was taking hold in Cripple Creek. The wall was nestled in against a hillside, keeping the low profile that makes the memorial in Washington DC so unique and powerful.

Just the presence of the replica wall drew those making their private pilgrimage, and others who came out of curiosity, or for, unknowingly, an education.

Retired CW4 Russell Stott came to visit the wall from Colorado Springs. He is a three-tour Vietnam vet, now retired after a career in the Army. His visit to the wall was personal, and private. He piloted choppers, and was shot down three times. It is hard to imagine the feelings he dealt with at The Wall. While he didn’t talk about his personal feelings, he did like that the wall was in the Victor Gold Bowl.

“This is nice,” he said. Bringing it close to a lot of people is good.”

Another visitor, an older middle-aged man wearing a leather vest and bandanna, stood a few feet away from the wall, staring intently. Robert Jackson stood there for more than half an hour, staring at his brother’s name.

“He was drafted, and I volunteered about 18 months later,” Jackson said, choking through tears. “My big brother died while I was in boot camp. It still tears me up.”

Not all stories at the wall were so heart-rending though. In a surprising story, Cecilia Eastman left an upbeat handwritten note for her friend Orval Baldwin. The note explained that a church had been built in his name in his Wisconsin hometown.

“I wanted to let Orval know that good things were happening here,” Eastman explained. “It still makes me sad that his name is on The Wall, but I think maybe I’ve made peace with it, and I want him to know that things are OK.”

Perhaps one of the most curious events at The Wall occurred when a group of high school girls—local cheerleaders who’d been practicing—were trying to take in the memorial. As it was explained to them the more than 58,000 names were the men and women who died in Vietnam, a war they have no recollection of, and many of the visitors that day had fought there, they all fell silent, and even looked a little scared. One girl, who appeared to truly absorb the full impact of what she was seeing, had a look of shock ad horror on her face as she whispered to her friend, making the comparison to the 5700-plus gold dog tags marking the KIA’s in the Global War On Terror that were displayed on the other side of the field. They whispered to each other about how many of these fallen soldiers were not much older than they are. Sobered, they walked off the field.

The Wall continued drawing visitors as the sun moved to the western horizon, even as the nightlife in Victor, which is considerable, began to stir.

Back in Cripple Creek, with the sun setting in a perfect Colorado sky, the party kicked into high gear, as vets, soldiers, bikers, and everyone else, enjoyed the welcoming hospitality and happy atmosphere. It was going to be a good night in the mountains.

“I don’t know how things could have gone any better,” Wear said. “From our standpoint it was a rousing success. No serious police action, things went as planned, a good crowd, only one accident, and everyone seemed real happy to be there. It really is good to be back in Cripple Creek.”

White echoed that sentiment.

I’m not sure things could have gone any more smoothly,” he said. There were no real problems, everyone was enjoying themselves, and all of us—city government, residents, businesses—were real happy to have everyone here.”

And everyone seemed happy to be in Cripple Creek. After all, there’s no place like home.

Southwest Scooter News http://www.scooternews.net/node/2902 (dead link)