Rolling Thunder
Mission Statement
The major function of Rolling Thunder® Inc. is to publicize POW-MIA issues:
To educate the public that many American prisoners of war were left behind
after all previous wars and to help correct the past and to protect future veterans from being left behind should they become prisoners of war
or missing in action.
We are also committed to helping American veterans from all wars.
Rolling Thunder® Inc. is a non-profit organization. Members donate their time because they believe in the issues we are working on.
Welcome to Chapter 5
Rolling Thunder Chapter 5 Ohio is based in Mount Gilead, Ohio at VFW Post 8054. We meet on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 1:00 p.m.
Education regarding the POW-MIA issues have led us to develop, design and build our Memorial to Ohio's POW-MIA's. The Memorial has the 137 names of our missing. It states the branch of service, rank, hometown of record and date of incident (gone missing) for each. If remains have been recovered, identified, and accepted by the families, the date of the return is added after each name.
We have displayed our Memorial around Ohio and Indiana. We do static displays or we can provide a program regarding the POW-MIA issue.
We have presented programs in schools, the Vietnam Veterans Reunion at Kokomo IN., Erie County OH fair,and many others. Gold Star Sunday at the Memorial Shrine in the Mohican State Forest is an annual event of which we are most proud.
The Memorial can be set up outside (weather permitting) or inside. We have our own public address system and generator if commercial power isn't available. The chapter does request a modest donation which helps us defray expenses for transportation, maintenance and equipment. The chapter quartermaster has items (hats, pins, patches, t shirts) available for donation to generate funds to assist local veterans.
If your group or organization is interested in having our Memorial at your veteran oriented event, please feel free to contact us. We start scheduling events in January each year. Your input and local speakers would be welcome to participate in our program. Memorial Day weekend is not available for scheduling, due to our chapter being in Washington D.C. for the Run To The Wall.
Memorial Scheduling Policy
Due to limited resources of time, personnel and finance it has become necessary to develop a scheduling policy for the Chapter 5 Memorial.
Number of events per year:
The maximum number of events for the Memorial will be limited to eight (8).
One per month, May through November. Except for September, this will include one event plus Gold Star Sunday.
Scheduling of events:
Events will be chosen using the follow criteria.
Events with/for other Rolling Thunder Chapters will receive first priority.
a. Rolling Thunder chapter events will be limited to 2 per year for all chapters.
b. Rolling Thunder chapters will be limited to one event per chapter per year.
c. Multiple requests for events from chapters in one month will be decided by scheduling committee.
d. All organizations will be limited to one Memorial event per year.
New events (one we have not done before) second priority.
Repeat event (not including Gold Star Sunday) third priority.
Requesting Memorial for an event:
Requests for the Memorial can be made at anytime during the year (January through December). They can be by phone, email or in person.
No event will be scheduled “instantly” the schedule will be set in January.
Information about the event to be collected: Name of event, place, date, and contact person, contact info (phone & email) and date request made.
Any requests after cutoff date will not be considered for the upcoming year.
In January, Memorial committee and executive officers and board members will meet to discuss and set Memorial schedule for the year.
For any event request that cannot be fulfilled, notification will be made to the organization or person who made request.
The chapter reserves the right to setup, tear-down at our discretion at all events.
