Patriot Guard Riders

[planedick]

Me too

Been a member for 6 yrs and have been on many missions. Some are very impresive. One I remember was meeting a plane at the military airport in Los Alamitos and escorting a young soldier and his family to Downey to the funeral home. The turnout in Downey by the locals including police and fire dept was unbelievable. The streets from the freeway to the funeral home was lined with people, police, fire trucks and everyone was saluting or such. Totally awesome. And then there's the ride for so some kid with a terminal illness so he could see a hundred motorcycles go by his house. There were literaly thousands. I get e-mail alerts from the ride captians daily and most are too far away for me, but any that are close enough I participate in.

[gui_tarzan]

I've been a PGR member since late 2007. I'm member #8987 and last I knew there are over 250,000 of us. I am a civilian, never served but this is my way of giving back to those who put their lives on the line for our freedom or the pursuit of freedom for others. These families deserve respect and compassion and we give it to them.

I've been to around twenty or so "missions" since I joined, all here in Michigan. I've been within spitting distance of the protesters and was proud to stand between them and the families. I can't get to very many these days due to work but I do go when I can. I don't have a running bike right now so I've gone to the last several with my car but

I could talk about a severely wounded soldier that we escorted to an assisted living home where he was going to try to recover enough to be productive in society again, and he was smiling the whole time we were with him because he was glad we were there. Or the tearful faces on the mothers and wives of fallen soldiers that thanked us for standing in respect. I can't talk about those without tearing up myself so I'll just say it's the most humbling experience I've ever had and even though I hate the reason we do this, I love being able to pay my respects in this way.