Rolling Thunder and Reflections on the Bedford Boys

In 2007 I joined a large group of (mainly) veterans who rode across the country, ending in Washington, D.C. On Memorial Day weekend, we would participate in the "Rolling Thunder" motorcycle ride, ending at the Vietnam Memorial Wall. This is an excerpt from a longer article about the cross-country "Ride to the Wall," that focuses on a minor personal moment in Bedford, Virginia.

Our group of riders made our way on across Mississippi and through Alabama before turning north to go through East Tennessee and into Virginia.?There in Virginia I had another very memorable experience. Before describing it, however, I must provide a bit of background.?

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In mid-May, just as I was beginning my trip, I read an article in The New Yorker about West Point and several cadets, including a young woman named Marya Rosenberg. The New Yorker made clear that, although Marya had the support of her parents, her friends and teachers thought she was mad, even immoral, because she chose to attend West Point.?Selecting West Point as her college was unexpected and unusual because of the common expectations in New York for someone of her background.?

Marya lived in what the New Yorker described as “one of the deepest-blue precincts of a staunchly antiwar city.” Her parents both were corporate lawyers, and she apparently had no family military background.?She and her parents lived in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.?She attended Hunter, one of the City’s elite high schools where, the New Yorker article assured us, “a liberal political viewpoint is as assumed as the school building’s staying upright.”?The New York Times has described Hunter as “the fast track to law, medicine and academia” with no mention, of course, of the military.?A young lady coming from such an “exclusive” background was expected to seek admission to an “elite” college such as Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Harvard, or another of the exclusive Ivy League schools.?Such blessed young people just were not expected go into the military, even by going to West Point.?

While enjoying a leave from West Point, Marya decided, as many college students do, to visit her old high school.?She was invited to talk about what life was like for a West Point cadet, so she wore her uniform for her visit.?During her visit to see her friends and teachers from just a few months prior, she had several unpleasant encounters, two of which I describe below.?I would have reason to reflect on these and the article about Marya later in my trip.?

That article was still fresh in my mind when our group stopped for lunch in Bedford, Virginia.?Now, Bedford is famous in its own right, even though its inhabitants would have preferred otherwise.?During World War II, what had originally been a National Guard unit of local Bedford men had been incorporated into the 29th Infantry Division.?Initially, most of the men in Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division were from Bedford.?By June 1944, due to injuries, promotions, and transfers, that number had been reduced, but of the 230 soldiers in Company A, 35 were from Bedford.

In the Spring of 1944, the “Bedford Boys” drew the short straw.?They were tasked with going ashore in France in a sector designated “Dog Green,” just in front of a draw leading to the French town of Vierville.? The beach was code-named “Omaha” and the world would come to know it as "Bloody Omaha." As the men of Company A disembarked from their landing craft and moved over the exposed beach, they were slaughtered by German machine gunners on the bluffs above.?Over nine out of every ten men were killed or wounded.?Of these, 19 of the 35 Bedford Boys still in Company A were killed on D-Day (a twentieth was killed while serving in another company), and four more were to die in the days that followed. When the wounded are counted, 30 of the 35 Bedford Boys in Company A had become casualties.?Since Bedford had a population of only about 3200 in 1944, this meant that it had the sad distinction of suffering the highest proportion of killed and wounded on D-Day of any city or town in America.

So that is a brief synopsis of the relevant military background and history of Bedford, Virginia, where we stopped for lunch while rolling through Virginia.?The lunch was hosted at a local high school.?As we arrived (and again when we departed) the driveway to the school was lined with students, parents and teachers applauding and giving us support.?We ate in the school cafeteria, with several of us riders sharing each table and talking with students.?As I write this in 2022, it is a bit difficult to imagine, but there was not a whisper of any kind of protest. Every person in that school was uniformly supportive.?After lunch we attended an assembly of the entire school, where the children sang patriotic songs, including the official hymns for each military service.?

The thing that most sticks in my mind, however, is the memory of a walk that I took down one of the school corridors. I was just looking at the various plaques, athletic trophies, and the like that you typically see in the corridors of a high school. As I rounded one corner, however, I came upon a different display.?It was a tribute to the military in general, and to all veterans in particular. I do not remember all the details now, but I do recall various pictures, articles and artifacts memorializing and honoring veterans.?

This was not a display that had been prepared to show to our group of veterans as we were coming through.?It appeared to be a permanent display.?It was not even mentioned to our group, and I only stumbled upon it because I had decided to wander through the hallways by myself.?To my knowledge, no one else from our group even saw it.

On any other day, in any other setting, I probably would have considered it to be relatively unremarkable.?But it was - literally - remarkable because I still remember this innocuous little display 17 years later.?It was remarkable, not just because of the patriotic venue where it was located, but because of the unfortunate contrast with other parts of the country. As I looked at it, I could not help but think about the article I had recently read about the young West Point cadet, Marya Rosenberg, going back to visit Hunter High School to talk about her experiences at West Point.?

Marya had sought out her art-history teacher to let him know that she was taking art-history courses at West Point.?His response??“Oh, so you’ll know what [the] buildings are before you drop bombs on them?” Another of her formerly respected teachers, who obviously was part of the “George Bush is a Nazi” crowd, was offended by her presence.?In his view, she sullied the halls of “his” exclusive school by daring to visit it while wearing her West Point uniform.?So, what was a mature authority figure like him to do?? Get in her face and spew one of the left’s unthinking slogans at his former student: “No blood for oil!”?

As I reflected on the Bedford High School’s display honoring veterans, as well as the other patriotism shown by parents, teachers and children in Bedford, I could not help but think of the contrast between that and the faculty at Hunter described in The New Yorker and the graduates each would produce.?Hunter may produce more lawyers, investment bankers and patrons of the arts.?But as I thought of the Bedford students this is what came to me: “These are the kids who will fight for us; these are the kids who will win our wars.?It is not, for the most part, the kids from wealthy families and elite schools in Manhattan or the Ivy Ieague.?It is the strong, salt-of-the-earth kids from places like Bedford, Virginia.”?

They have and they will.