READER JED KANE sends this update from Washington, along with a couple of photos:

I went to the Rolling Thunder Memorial Day 2004 ride in DC Sunday. The group is made up of mostly Vietnam vets, and the ride is to raise awareness of the POW/MIA issue, as well as to honor vets. The group’s leader’s paid a visit to President Bush via Harley and presented him with a Rolling Thunder tee-shirt. This group has endorsed Bush over Kerry, a significant action given their membership.

Here’s a link to the Washington Post article (registration required).

Note paragraphs 9 through 11.

While the bike adornments were mostly apolitical, I shot these examples of how these folks view John Kerry.

Kane is certainly right that there’s a lot of anti-Kerry sentiment mentioned in the Post article, entirely consistent with these photographs. And this suggests — as I’ve mentioned before — that Kerry has been mistaken to play up the Vietnam angle so much.

UPDATE: Well, this explains it. Look who was attending.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chong-Ren Chien emails:

Hey, saw your story on Rolling Thunder and I figure I would contribute a couple of pictures your way. Hope you like them.

The first picture was shot while I was pulling up to the stop light in Alexandria, VA. The slogans on the truck were priceless so I pulled out my digital camera and took a shot.

The second one is with me with a couple of Vietnam vets. They were hanging out at the WWII memorial when I noticed them. I decided to approach them and ask for a picture and they obliged.

Thanks Chong! Here they are.