Bikers serve Christmas dinner to military service members unable to go home

It?s never too late for a really good Christmas story, and this one from reader Barry Wheeler is worth sharing.

Barry used to teach computer classes at Alamance Community College, and when the Times-News made its shift from typewriters to computers, he taught some of us how to deal with that problem.

He has a son who is a chief petty officer in the U.S. Navy, stationed at the Great Lakes Training Center in Illinois and has 18 years? service to his credit.

As part of his duties he manages a barracks for some 300 personnel taking advanced training classes, and when the Christmas holidays came, most of that number headed home to be with their families.

However, there were about 20 who, for one reason or another, could not go home.

He received a call from a group that wanted to feed those who could not go home. He thought it was a local USO group, so he thought it would be a good thing and said yes to the invitation.

At the appointed time, a limousine and several cabs showed up to transport the sailors. Pretty neat.

So off they went. As they traveled, Barry?s son began to realize something was not right. He knew where the USO locations were in the area, and this little caravan was not going in the right direction. He really began to wonder when they rolled into an industrial area ? not a place one would expect for a Christmas party.

Finally they drove in behind some dark buildings and pulled to a stop in front of a bar ? a biker?s bar!

But any fears he had suddenly turned to surprise when he saw a big sign of welcome and a crowd of guys greeting them with smiles and handshakes.

Barry?s son said these were ?honest to God rough-looking bikers? complete with pony tails, scars, knives and everything you would associate with tough biker gangs. But those guys had laid out a holiday spread fit for a king, and they in fact treated the young sailors like royalty.

Time and time again, those bikers thanked the sailors for their service to their country.

It made for a very special Christmas for that group of young sailors.

Barry added a footnote to the story noting that he was in Wendy?s on South Church Street a couple of weeks before Christmas when two Marines in dress blues walked in. Everyone in the place began clapping for them.

?A beautiful change from when I returned from Vietnam in December, 1969,? he added.

???

There?s another piece to those columns regarding the minting of the commemorative presidential coins. Remember that we argued against the utter waste in minting those coins ? $150,000,000 a year, in fact.

And you remember that the minting has now been halted by directive from the White House. Finally, good sense prevailed on an issue in government.

And now comes another reason why many Americans are glad to see that production stopped. That reason, according to a couple of readers who are collecting those coins, is that the presidential commemoratives do not bear the motto ?In God We Trust.?

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Don Bolden is editor of the Times-News. His column appears every Sunday. He can be contacted at DBolden202@aol.com.

Source: http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/unable-51304-home-members.html

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