By Kelly Rocheleau, Education and City Reporter, Auburnpub.com
Auburn — For Danny Baker, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway of Valor Tribute Ride is not a simple joy ride. It's a tribute to fallen heroes.
The 12th annual event featured riders on motorcycles and other vehicles — many of them Vietnam War veterans — cutting through a 100-mile trek from Owego to the American Legion in Hannibal along Route 38, named the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway of Valor. The riders made their way into Auburn Saturday afternoon, where a small but vocal group cheered and waved flags as the ride went by Memorial City Hall.
The ride was sponsored by Vietnam Veterans of America Chapters 377, 480 and Chapter 704, and Blue Knights Chapter 17. Baker, a Vietnam veteran and a former officer with the Ithaca Police Department, co-created the event with his brother Harvey Baker and others as a way to acknowledge two upstate New York men who died in the war.
Robert Stryker, born in Auburn, and Terrence Graves, who grew up in Groton, both posthumously received the Medal of Honor for "saving their fellow men and dying in the process" in Vietnam, Baker said. Baker, a founding member of the chapter 33 group and a member of the Blue Knights Chapter 17, said that he knew Graves while growing up.
"The ride is to honor them," Baker said.
The event is also meant to generate awareness to "the fighting spirit of the Vietnam veteran and how much they sacrificed," Baker said, and to draw attention to why Route 38 has the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway of Valor name. The route received the name in 2009 due in large part to the work of veteran Lauren Dates. That year, before the route was renamed, Dates said he believed having two signs spotlighting the route's destination as a Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway, one on each end of the 96-mile distance from Owego to Sterling, would strengthen awareness of the war and the veterans who fought in it.
"If you've ever been at war and you've lost people and you were in combat, it would certainly mean everything to you," Baker said.
The passion of the people who cheered for the riders in Auburn Saturday was palpable. The gathering of around 15 people included Mayor Mike Quill, who is U.S. Marine Corps veteran. Color guard members of the veterans chapter 704 group stood on the steps of city hall with flags. Horns, cheers and more blasted through the air, and mile-wide smiles could be spotted on several of the riders who zoomed past.
At one point, Vietnam veteran Jim Zmarthie saluted with one arm as he held up an American flag with the other. Maureen Kierst raised a flag honoring prisoners of war and those killed in action, which she said was to acknowledge Robert Coapman, a Vietnam veteran and Kierst's significant other for 28 years who died four years ago from cancer. Kierst became visibly emotional after most of the riders went by, and hugged Zmarthie. Zmarthie, Kierst and fellow onlookers Mary Anne Chalupnicki and Suzanne Sierson said they wanted to have seen more people there to greet the riders.
Kierst said she was deeply moved by the event and she was happy to be there. She added that she felt the riders were acknowledging veterans and all of those who have been involved in combat.
"It's a show of respect and honor," she said.