The journey begun on may 15, 1984. It started at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington D.C. There were a hand full of reporters; strangely, they were all foreign reporters. None of the American press had shown up. I was about to start a second trip by horseback. Six months earlier, I had ridden from Massachusetts along the Boston Post Road, on horseback, to Washington carrying an American flag for the prisoners of war left behind in Viet Nam. I'll get into how I got involved with the POWs/MIAs later on. Mayors and public officials tied red ribbons to the flag to represent their cities. By the time I got to the White House, the flag represented at least 30-40 million people. Regan was the president at this time and I hoped to draw his attention to these abandoned servicemen. Anyway to make a long story short. A colonel Childress came running out of the White House as I sat on my horse at the White House gate. Now the story had received much news coverage between Providence, R.I. and Baltimore. The good colonel took the flag, handed me a half filled box of presidential matches, said "thanks for coming" and ran back into the White House. Family members of the missing men had told me of the government's attempt to keep the issue out of the public eye, hence the horse trip and flag pubic awareness campaign. We had raised the issue, in the press, along the heavily populated northeast corridor to Washington's front door. Washington pretended not to notice. Not surprisingly, I also never heard from any of the Massachusetts "representatives" in Washington.
Living behind the Iron Curtain of Massachusetts maybe a subject for a blog at another time. The battle for the return our servicemen was joined. The final battle of Viet Nam. What the politicians failed to realize was that I might well be a "country bumpkin" on a horse to them; I was the stubborniest "country bumpkin" as far as informing the Country about these missing men. They would find that the more opposition they threw at me, the harder I would fight. I should also mention that while I was in the service during Viet Nam, I did not serve over there.
For years, the only ones raising the issue were Viet Nam Vets and that was wrong. These were American servicemen serving in our name. Now it looked like it was up to We the people to take responsibility for them. As I sat on my horse at the White House gate staring at my half filled box of presidential matches and wondering, OK, what do I do now? I began to realize the full extent of the effort to keep these missing men out of the public consciousness.
I had already taken notice of the newspapers that tried to "kill the story" by refusing to report it as I rode through their area and met with their public officials. Such as the day the mayor of Philadelphia presented me with a replica of the Liberty Bell, the Philadelphia Inquirer was noticeably absent from the ceremony at city hall, so after the ceremony I rode over to their building and sat on my horse at their front door for an hour.
I should also mention that I hate tyrants in any form. Especially those that betray a public trust. The Bill of Rights gives the public a right to a free press; it does not give the press a right to manipulate the news or keeo it from the public. Only four newspapers on that first ride tried to kill the story by not reporting it. Besides the Philadephia Inquirer, there was Newark, NJ, of course the New York Times and one other in CT. The name of which escapes me now. I will leave out the treachery of the Brockton Enterprise (my local paper) and the Massachusetts media in general, for another time.
While in Washington, I was introduced to people at AIM (Accuracy in Media), Stars & Stripes (a military newspaper) and the National League of POW/MIA Families. By this time, word had spread of my arrival among Washingtonian involved with the POWs. I was asked to make a return trip by horse back to Boston, stopping off at the United Nations to deliver a petition with a million signatures, for the release of these missing men.
For most of the country, the publicity trip by horseback had gotten the public attention the issue needed. Public opinion was being generated. People were talking about POWs and asking questions. In case no one knows, public opinion is the only motivation for our elected "representatives." Five people on horseback made the return trip.
At the United Nations, we were mobbed by reporters and met by family members of the missing men. We finished that trip at my house in Massachusetts where we immediately fell into the black hole of the Massachusetts Media. The story had carried across the nation on wire services and was reported wherever a free press still existed. It had worked beyond my expectations. I had sensed that the American public wasn't the uncaring, stay home and mind your own business, public that the media tries to convince us we are. People simply didn't know of all the reports of live sighting of American servicemen still being held by the North Viet Namese.
I had not planned to become so involved, I had intended only to use my sense of history to lend a hand for these missing men. This one trip to Washington would be my contribution. The hardships of six weeks in a saddle, faced in the October weather of the northeast gave me an instant education in long distance riding. Despite the lack of media reporting in Massachusetts, by word of mouth people involved with the POWs sought me out.
Than disaster struck. My conscience would not leave me alone. The job has just begun and there was more work to do for these missing men. They were trapped in foreign prison camps and relying on their fellow Americans for help. Could I now turn my back on them? I came to this country from Rome, Italy when I was two years old. Sure, I had to fight my way through the first four grades while I learn to speak English. Then in the ninth grade, a teacher asked me if I would be interested in holding the flag every Thursday at the West Junior High School assemblies.
I had not planned to become so involved, I had intended only to use my sense of history to lend a hand for these missing men. This one trip to Washington would be my contribution. The hardships of six weeks in a saddle, faced in the October weather of the northeast gave me an instant education in long distance riding. Despite the lack of media reporting in Massachusetts, by word of mouth people involved with the POWs sought me out.
Than disaster struck. My conscience would not leave me alone. The job has just begun and there was more work to do for these missing men. They were trapped in foreign prison camps and relying on their fellow Americans for help. Could I now turn my back on them? I came to this country from Rome, Italy when I was two years old. Sure, I had to fight my way through the first four grades while I learn to speak English. Then in the ninth grade, a teacher asked me if I would be interested in holding the flag every Thursday at the West Junior High School assemblies.
It’s a funny thing, but standing on a stage holding, the flag while hundreds of other students stand and pledge alliance to the flag has an effect on you. It makes you think about all the people that struggled to create this country out of nothing but shear determination and the example for the world that it’s become. Not only for the economic opportunities, but also for the relative peace and security it offers to our children. Our government is not perfect, but it will only be what we make it. There we have a choice. We can either sit back and complain or we can take charge of our own destinies. The choice is always ours. We have a great country and I understood that it didn’t become great all by it’s self. What has always make America great was its citizens. People willing to stand up for what they believed in.
OK, where do we go from here? We rode to Washington but no one there was listening. We should take it to the American People from coast to coast. We should have had two years to plan such an undertaking, but those men didn’t have two years to wait. In six months, we would have to leave. Planning this trip would be much more involved than getting on my horse and riding to Washington by myself. How should it be structured? If we are going to take on this enormous task, it will have to have the desired effect the first time.
OK, where do we go from here? We rode to Washington but no one there was listening. We should take it to the American People from coast to coast. We should have had two years to plan such an undertaking, but those men didn’t have two years to wait. In six months, we would have to leave. Planning this trip would be much more involved than getting on my horse and riding to Washington by myself. How should it be structured? If we are going to take on this enormous task, it will have to have the desired effect the first time.
The symbolism of the horse in American history would portray the underlying message, that the principels of America’s past should not be forgotten. Fifty riders would be needed to represent each of the States. They should each carry a state flag. At least two trailer trucks would be needed to carry food and supplies.
The commissioner of Veterans affairs for Massachusetts contacted the other states’ veteran's commissioners and requested state flags. Soon the Veterans Affairs commissioner called me and said that he was starting to get letters back from the other commissioners saying that they were sending their state flags to our P.O. Box. Weeks pasted and no flags were arriving at the P.O. Box. The commissioner had forwarded their letters to me. Sure enough, half a dozen states had mailed the flags already. Not to seem paranoid but I started to sense the fine hand of interference. I called each of the commissioners that sent letters, by phone and confirm that they indeed had sent the flag. Strangely, after confirming that the flags had been sent, the flag that I confirmed would show up at the P.O. Box, all post marked weeks before.
OK, I expected opposition of those shadowy figures that lurk in the background. I dated each envelop with the date of arrival and after I had received two dozen I brought the envelops in to the chief postal inspector in Boston and showed them to him. He scratched his head and said he couldn’t figure out how it was being done. He started an investigation and soon all the flags were arriving on time. I might as well take the time to record some of the other “dirty tricks” thrown at us to prevent the ride across America from happening. I was calling on local businesses and asking for donations of computers, trucks, supplies, etc. and was getting positive responses. As time went on, the promised supplies were not materializing. As I contacted each of the donors, each had changed their mind for unexplained reasons. It was as if someone was walking right behind us and talking the donors into changing their mind, but that couldn’t happen in the land of the free.
I spoke at a convention of V.F.W. post commanders for the state of Massachusetts and asked for their financial support. They voted to support us. We would have to write a letter to each of the individual posts, requesting funding. They even voted to pay the postage and mail the letters themselves. Well again, nothing was showing up at the mailbox. I went into the Massachusetts State House where the State V.F.W. office was located and found the letters sitting in a corner. I asked the state commander why the letters hadn’t been sent out. Gaby the state commander told me that he had heard a rumor that the trip wasn’t going to take place. I said to him, “on the strength of a rumor you left those letters sitting in a corner without even calling me and asking.” By this time, I had twenty-six riders from the New England states alone waiting to ride. I went over and picked up the letters. Gaby said “your not taking them”. I told him that I had bought and paid for the letters and envelops, if he wanted to stop me from taking my property he was welcomed to try. I mailed the three hundred letters, two replies with twenty dollars each came to our P.O. Box.
The IRS, at this time, sent both my father and I notices to be audited. I called the IRS and explained what I was doing, I never heard from them again. The pressure was on full tilt. Funding, supplies and equipment had all disappeared. The announced start date of May 15th was approaching fast. Calls from riders coming from other states were coming in. I sat and took inventory of the assets we had left. A toy store had donated fifty toy horses and riders and a number of toy trucks with which we were studying the logistics that would be involved in moving a large group across America. We had incorporated as Friends of POW/MIA, I had spoken at the local high school and a dozen students had volunteered to staff the office of the non-profit organization we had set up to handle communications between the riders and others across the Nation trying to contact us. These were the days before cell phones and the internet. This base of operations was headed by Tucker, a disabled Viet Nam Vet that I grew to respect immensely. In those dark days, as failure loomed high on the horizon, we took stock of the options we had left to us. It was either scrub the trip completely or begin it on schedule with the little resources I had.
Did I mention before that I was the stubborniest “country bumpkin” on a horse that these political hacks would ever meet? I had two horse and two thousand dollars left to my name. Somehow, this ride was going to take place, in one form or another. May 15th would find at least one person on horseback at 1600 Pennsylvania in Washington. So it began. I didn’t know how I was going to do this. Many people had told me that “you can’t ride a horse across America, in this day and age.” Somehow, my sense of history told me that they were wrong. If I have learn anything from history, it was that people could accomplish the near impossible, but only by firm effort.
I paid a man five hundred dollars to transport myself and two horses to Washington. It was May 15th. Nine in the morning was the appointed time sent in the press releases to the Washington media. I had found a veteran at the Viet Nam Memorial that would ride the other horse for a week. We arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to find seven or eight reporters, all from foreign newspapers waiting. I explained the purpose of the ride to the press and estimated it would take nine months to reach California. We left Washington without fanfare. People on the streets looked at the two men on horseback and wondered what was going on. We rode north forward Frederick, Maryland and reached the outskirts by nightfall.
In the days before the interstate highways were built, cities were connected by, what are now secondary roads. We Left Frederick on the old Frederick Road and cover the thirty miles to Gettysburg, PA that day. We arrived on the outskirts of the Gettysburg National Military Park and checked into a campground. I was fairly well familiar with the battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Gettysburg address from history classes in school, or so I thought. I had often found reference to the battle in Civil War books I had read. The next day I wanted to see this famous site for myself. A local man I had met at the campground offered to show me the sights. He like many people that live in the Gettysburg area, in the shadow of this terrible and honorable place, know its history quite well and preserve it.
As we walked the well-groomed pastures of the battlefield and I listened to his descriptions of the events that took place here, I could feel an energy here. 75,000 men from the army of Northern Virginia met and fought 97,000 men from the Union army of the Potomac. After three days of fighting, there were 51,000 causalities of the blue and the grey. Thousands of soldiers never left this place and to me their present or the memory of them can still be felt.
The people of Gettysburg labored for a long time to bury the dead and clean up the carnage. For years after the battle, bodies of dead soldiers were still being discovered in remote places. It’s a credit to the people of the area that they have kept this solemn place and its memory intact for future generations. The reading I had done about Gettysburg didn’t prepare me for this day. In the books are recorded the names of Lee, Meade, Longstreet and the other generals. Here you meet Samuel, Joshua, Billy, Johnny and the other Americans that to me fought in America’s great family feud. History isn’t names, dates and places. History is the story of what people have done. History was also, what I was using to present the issue of our missing men to the American public.
I believed that carrying a proclamation to governors across the country on horseback would get people’s attention long enough to understand that American servicemen were still being sighted in prison camps. My spell-check wants me to change servicemen to server members, as you can see I didn’t. I refuse to bow down before the alter of politic correctiveness. I’ll leave that to idiots running for public office and the growing number of effeminate men in this country.
On a personal note. I met a woman that worked at the campground and had an opportunity to spend several days talking with her. I delayed leaving for another day so that I could see her again. On the outside change that she ever reads this blog, I still think of her from time to time. Had I not been on such an important project, I might have never left Gettysburg.
We met with a reporter in Gettysburg and explained the purpose of this journey. I also showed him copies of declassified CIA reports of live sighting of American servicemen that I was given in Washington. The next day, after reading the newspaper, many people approached us to shake our hand or ask questions about the POWs and express their support. My assumption had been right. It wasn’t that the public didn’t care; they just didn’t know the facts.
On a personal note. I met a woman that worked at the campground and had an opportunity to spend several days talking with her. I delayed leaving for another day so that I could see her again. On the outside change that she ever reads this blog, I still think of her from time to time. Had I not been on such an important project, I might have never left Gettysburg.
We met with a reporter in Gettysburg and explained the purpose of this journey. I also showed him copies of declassified CIA reports of live sighting of American servicemen that I was given in Washington. The next day, after reading the newspaper, many people approached us to shake our hand or ask questions about the POWs and express their support. My assumption had been right. It wasn’t that the public didn’t care; they just didn’t know the facts.
For years, the only news coverage was little blips in newspapers that didn’t give the public any information and were quickly replaced by the next day’s headlines. Bob the brother of a missing man, that got me involved with the POWs, had explained that the problem in getting news coverage was that there was nothing new to say. That when I came up with the idea of just presenting it in a way. For years, veterans had been trying to raise the issue by such things as riding their motorcycles to Washington in support of the missing men. When I looked at the problem I saw that first, it hadn’t given the public time to absorb the information as the whole thing was over in a day or two, secondly, Washington wasn’t listening.
I learned a lot on the first horseback trip to Washington. Its success was in the fact that no knew about the upcoming trip and so there was no time to mount opposition. It took over two weeks to arrive in New Haven, CT where the first newspaper said they weren’t interested in writing a story. The reporter I spoke to was a Viet Nam Vet and he couldn’t understand his editor’s reason for not writing a story. I had designed the trip for the media’s benefit. Horse, flag, riding hundreds of miles through cities. For a industry that professes to be in the business of selling newspapers, I thought their behavior was strange. I wondered what business their were really in. This was the first part of my education in how big media works in America. By the time, I finish all the horseback riding I could have earned a degree in media deception. It became a battle of wits. Move and counter move, not unlike a chess game.
I learned a lot on the first horseback trip to Washington. Its success was in the fact that no knew about the upcoming trip and so there was no time to mount opposition. It took over two weeks to arrive in New Haven, CT where the first newspaper said they weren’t interested in writing a story. The reporter I spoke to was a Viet Nam Vet and he couldn’t understand his editor’s reason for not writing a story. I had designed the trip for the media’s benefit. Horse, flag, riding hundreds of miles through cities. For a industry that professes to be in the business of selling newspapers, I thought their behavior was strange. I wondered what business their were really in. This was the first part of my education in how big media works in America. By the time, I finish all the horseback riding I could have earned a degree in media deception. It became a battle of wits. Move and counter move, not unlike a chess game.
These media moguls believed that they were the only one that have access to public opinion. They are wrong and I was only to happy to point them out to the public in local radio and television shows I spoke at. Every day we would speak to one or two hundred people on the streets alone. Those people in turn spoke to their friends and neighbors, who in turn spoke to people at work and so on and so on. We used not only the media, but generated public opinion also by word of mouth. The long slow horse trip was designed to give the public the time needed to stimulate public opinion and get people talking about the POWs. The public than took the news into the surrounding towns not on our route. Each person that expressed shock at the government reports we showed them became an advocate for those missing men.
The ride to Chambersburg, the next town, took about seven hours during this day many drivers waved and wished us luck. Another newspaper interview here introduced us to Barry a twenty-five year old who had been planning a horseback trip to the Rocky Mountains. Barry was into mountain men and their life style. He had his own horse, a full set of buckskins w/fringe, bowie knife and black powder rife. I explained to Barry what we were doing and asked him if he wanted to join us and make his trip count for something. Barry agreed to ride with us, but needed a few days to prepare.
While waiting for Barry, the Vet from D.C. that started the trip with me wanted to go home. An Veteran from Chambersburg named Mike, who had served in Viet Nam during the evacuation in 1975, also wanted to make the trip. Another man named Joe had driven from Connecticut to find us in his van. He would drive along and be the point man. Anne, Mike’s girl friend now decided that she also wanted to come. It seemed that things were starting to look up.
We were underway again; three riders and an accompanying van to carry supplies. I had sent the newspaper articles back to Tucker at the office. In this articles were printed our organization’s address and an invitation for the public to join Friends of POW/MIA. Their ten-dollar membership fee was needed to help fuel this project. Tucker had sent copies of the newspaper articles, and details of the riders carrying the governor of Massachusetts proclamation across America, to the Boston newspapers and television stations.
We were underway again; three riders and an accompanying van to carry supplies. I had sent the newspaper articles back to Tucker at the office. In this articles were printed our organization’s address and an invitation for the public to join Friends of POW/MIA. Their ten-dollar membership fee was needed to help fuel this project. Tucker had sent copies of the newspaper articles, and details of the riders carrying the governor of Massachusetts proclamation across America, to the Boston newspapers and television stations.
The Boston media ignored them and remained silent. They seem determined to starve us into submission. Feeding five people and three horses quickly depleted the fifteen hundred dollars I had started in Washington with. The response from the public had been tremendous, once they learned of the reports of live prisoners. Many were outraged at the government’s lack of action and asked how they could help. Join our organization, write letters to your representatives and talk to your friends and neighbors about writing letters I would tell them.
In one of the declassified reports, a Viet Namese man reported talking to an American prisoner after the war had ended. The soldier asked him to “Tell the world about us, tell them not to forget us.” (In Viet Nam, American soldiers referred to America as the world). I was determined to do just that. I can’t tell you how many times I saw tears in peoples’ eyes when they learned of the situation. “How could the government do this to our men, became a common question the public asked me.
By the time, we reached the next town of Mc Connellsburg; news of the ride across America for the POWs had arrived before us. People in cars were waving and shouting out support. People on the streets were stopping us to shake our hands and wish us good luck. The momentum in public opinion was starting to build. I had seen the reaction of the public in my six weeks trip to Washington. I knew that if our elected representatives needed public opinion (pressure), to do their jobs, it was more than available on this issue. People were willing to take the time to write letters, not just make phone calls, because politicians consider a letter more serious than a phone call. The POWs struck at the heart of America.
As we rode across the rolling hills along of route 30, I asked Mike, who was a musician, to help me write a song that we could sing as we rode. For the next few days, we worked on lyrics for the song. Here are the lyrics;
Let’s ride across America
And set our brothers free
Bring them back from Viet Nam
Back to their families
Let ride across America
And give a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi, don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
Our brothers back in Viet Nam
They ask the question, why?
Did you leave us here for all these years
Did you leave us here to die
Don’t you know we fought for you
We tried to keep you free
Bring us back to America
Back home to our families
Now, come on brothers, come on sisters
Come along with me
Grab a horse and ride along
We need your company
Together we can do it
Their freedom we can bring
Until they’re all home again
We’ll all have to sing
We ride across America
To set our brothers free
Bring them back from Viet Nam
Back to their families
We ride across America
And give a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
The bureaucrats in Washington
Just don’t give a damn
They say there’s no Americans
Left in Viet Nam
They say they brought them all back home in 1973
But we know better
So we ride
Across this country
Now brothers if you hear this song
Take it to your heart
You are not forgotten
And you are still a part
Of a Nation that believes
In freedom for all
Come on all Americans
And answer this call
To ride across America
And raise a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
On horseback is how we make this ride
Cross this mighty land
From Washington to Los Angles
One mile for each man
And if you think we’re joking
Just come along with me
And we’ll ride across America
To set our brothers free
This song helped to pass away the long hours in the saddle, riding through the open country between towns. It lifted our sprites and reminded us of our purpose. In a few more days, we would be in Pittsburgh, the first major city. Local veteran organizations were helping by contacting the media in towns ahead of us. I wondered how we would be received by the media. Would they try to shut us down as the Massachusetts media had done?
We were met in Pittsburgh by veteran’s groups and a police escort the city had provided. The media was out in full force, newspaper, radio and television, I breath a sigh of relief. The Pittsburgh City Council asked that I speak at their next council meeting. By this time, buying gas for the van, printing copies of government reports, feeding three horse and five people, had finished the available funds I had. We were stuck in Pittsburgh. The local newspaper ran a story on our situation and I made an appeal for tax deductible donations to the organization. Tucker, back in Massachusetts, received one twenty dollar donation from a marine veteran of Viet Nam. I suspected that more people in Pittsburgh sent donations that were never received. Again it looked like we were going to be starved into quitting. While in Pittsburgh we had the help of an artist that worked for a utility company. She had designed some art work for us and had us over for dinner. One day she said she had to talk to us. Her voice was shaking and she was very nervous. She said she had called the office back in Massachusetts. She told me that she had spoken to me. I looked at her, surprised. I haven't left Pittsburgh, I told her. she said the voice on the phone was my and she was told that the trip had been canceled. I understood immediately what was happening. I wrote Tucker a letter and addressed it to his home. In his letter back to me, he told me he had received several phone calls aday from people trying to contact us, but lately the phone had all but stopped ringing. All of our lines of comminications were being cut off. Again things started to look bleak. I got the group together and explained what was going on. I suggested that they go home and I didn't know how, but I was going to finish this and somehow make it to California. They said they would stick it out as long as possible. I met another person in Pittsburgh that knew Ted Kopple, the TV news show host. They called him and told him what we were doing. They asked him why more wasn't being said about the POWs on his news program. Shortly after, Ted Kopple did do a program on POWs. We left Pittsburgh the next morning, heading west. I now had six dollar left. we brought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some cookies and drinks. by the end of that day we had crossed into Wheeling, WV. There we met with veteran groups and the W. Virginia media. Ohio was just on the other side of the river that ran through town. Early the next morning we crossed the river into Ohio. By nightfall we were in Cadiz, Ohio. We found that we had been expected, as Pittsburgh's TV stations service this part of Ohio. I believe it was here that I started to ask the mayors for a letter of support for the POWs. I wanted to make it offical that cities and town across America supported the return of our missing men. I asked the mayors to address the letters to the Congress of the United States.
By the time, we reached the next town of Mc Connellsburg; news of the ride across America for the POWs had arrived before us. People in cars were waving and shouting out support. People on the streets were stopping us to shake our hands and wish us good luck. The momentum in public opinion was starting to build. I had seen the reaction of the public in my six weeks trip to Washington. I knew that if our elected representatives needed public opinion (pressure), to do their jobs, it was more than available on this issue. People were willing to take the time to write letters, not just make phone calls, because politicians consider a letter more serious than a phone call. The POWs struck at the heart of America.
As we rode across the rolling hills along of route 30, I asked Mike, who was a musician, to help me write a song that we could sing as we rode. For the next few days, we worked on lyrics for the song. Here are the lyrics;
Let’s ride across America
And set our brothers free
Bring them back from Viet Nam
Back to their families
Let ride across America
And give a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi, don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
Our brothers back in Viet Nam
They ask the question, why?
Did you leave us here for all these years
Did you leave us here to die
Don’t you know we fought for you
We tried to keep you free
Bring us back to America
Back home to our families
Now, come on brothers, come on sisters
Come along with me
Grab a horse and ride along
We need your company
Together we can do it
Their freedom we can bring
Until they’re all home again
We’ll all have to sing
We ride across America
To set our brothers free
Bring them back from Viet Nam
Back to their families
We ride across America
And give a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
The bureaucrats in Washington
Just don’t give a damn
They say there’s no Americans
Left in Viet Nam
They say they brought them all back home in 1973
But we know better
So we ride
Across this country
Now brothers if you hear this song
Take it to your heart
You are not forgotten
And you are still a part
Of a Nation that believes
In freedom for all
Come on all Americans
And answer this call
To ride across America
And raise a mighty roar
Hey! Hanoi don’t you know
We ain’t gonna take no more
On horseback is how we make this ride
Cross this mighty land
From Washington to Los Angles
One mile for each man
And if you think we’re joking
Just come along with me
And we’ll ride across America
To set our brothers free
This song helped to pass away the long hours in the saddle, riding through the open country between towns. It lifted our sprites and reminded us of our purpose. In a few more days, we would be in Pittsburgh, the first major city. Local veteran organizations were helping by contacting the media in towns ahead of us. I wondered how we would be received by the media. Would they try to shut us down as the Massachusetts media had done?
We were met in Pittsburgh by veteran’s groups and a police escort the city had provided. The media was out in full force, newspaper, radio and television, I breath a sigh of relief. The Pittsburgh City Council asked that I speak at their next council meeting. By this time, buying gas for the van, printing copies of government reports, feeding three horse and five people, had finished the available funds I had. We were stuck in Pittsburgh. The local newspaper ran a story on our situation and I made an appeal for tax deductible donations to the organization. Tucker, back in Massachusetts, received one twenty dollar donation from a marine veteran of Viet Nam. I suspected that more people in Pittsburgh sent donations that were never received. Again it looked like we were going to be starved into quitting. While in Pittsburgh we had the help of an artist that worked for a utility company. She had designed some art work for us and had us over for dinner. One day she said she had to talk to us. Her voice was shaking and she was very nervous. She said she had called the office back in Massachusetts. She told me that she had spoken to me. I looked at her, surprised. I haven't left Pittsburgh, I told her. she said the voice on the phone was my and she was told that the trip had been canceled. I understood immediately what was happening. I wrote Tucker a letter and addressed it to his home. In his letter back to me, he told me he had received several phone calls aday from people trying to contact us, but lately the phone had all but stopped ringing. All of our lines of comminications were being cut off. Again things started to look bleak. I got the group together and explained what was going on. I suggested that they go home and I didn't know how, but I was going to finish this and somehow make it to California. They said they would stick it out as long as possible. I met another person in Pittsburgh that knew Ted Kopple, the TV news show host. They called him and told him what we were doing. They asked him why more wasn't being said about the POWs on his news program. Shortly after, Ted Kopple did do a program on POWs. We left Pittsburgh the next morning, heading west. I now had six dollar left. we brought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some cookies and drinks. by the end of that day we had crossed into Wheeling, WV. There we met with veteran groups and the W. Virginia media. Ohio was just on the other side of the river that ran through town. Early the next morning we crossed the river into Ohio. By nightfall we were in Cadiz, Ohio. We found that we had been expected, as Pittsburgh's TV stations service this part of Ohio. I believe it was here that I started to ask the mayors for a letter of support for the POWs. I wanted to make it offical that cities and town across America supported the return of our missing men. I asked the mayors to address the letters to the Congress of the United States.
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