Historical Impressions | The Wave

by Guy Miller, Vice Chair Emeritus, Chennault Aviation and Military Museum

This is an election year so November is all about politics.  Political signs, political rallies, political speeches, political emails, texts and calls asking for money and mostly political news droning on and on where ever you look.  So with politics dominating this month, I naturally want to talk about…bikers.

Yes, bikers.  Not the pedal-pushing kind- although that is great if it’s what you like to do.  No, I’m talking about the noisy kind of bikers.  The riders on two wheels who have an internal combustion engine between their legs.

Pay attention the next time you are out driving in your four-wheel vehicle of choice.  If you see two bikers pass each other in front of you, you are likely to see “the wave” – the left arms down and out and often with two fingers extended.  The wave is a greeting between bikers.  Bikers don’t first look to determine what brand of motorcycle the other person is riding before waving.  If bikers have any possibility of determining the ethnicity or sex of the other rider it’s long after they’ve already committed to a wave.  Bikers don’t stop before waving and ask the other about politics or religion or a favorite ball team.  Bikers wave because they are people with something in common- in this case a shared love of two-wheeling in the wind.  In case it’s not yet obvious, I am a biker so, yep, as long as it’s safe to do so, I wave at every biker I see.

But I don’t just wave at other bikers.  I believe I share something in common with every person.  I therefore try to give a friendly wave or greeting to everyone I pass while walking or who passes me while I’m sitting on my porch.  Most people wave or say hello back.  Even though I live in a very friendly place, I do this because it makes me feel where I live is just a bit more civilized and less hateful than it might have been the minute before.

So what has all this got to do with the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum?  As the name implies, the Museum has a major focus on the military.  If there is one thing that identifies a person in the military more than anything else it’s a uniform.  The uniform says you serve in the military and the specific uniform identifies which branch.  Which “uniform” came first- the noun or the adjective?  I have no idea myself.  But “uniform” is not only the set of clothing, it means you are part of a team; a team where any lack of focus could mean death to a teammate.  Again, why does this matter?

It matters because people who serve or served in the military can recognize each other by a uniform- or a shirt or a cap- as someone who took the oath to defend our nation.  It does not matter that they are strangers to each other and may never see each other again.  It does not matter if the other is or was in a different branch of the military.  Like bikers, they know they are brothers and sisters because they have something in common that is not shared with the majority of other people in the country.  It also means they know military service means you must put your trust, your life, in each others’ hands on a regular basis.

I said bikers don’t try to find out about the other’s politics before they wave.  Do veterans care about the type of service each other experienced?  Do combat veterans feel a little more “special” than those who only served in peacetime or in the reserves?  Do retired veterans think less of those who only served a single hitch?  My experience is invariably they do not.  In fact I have found combat veterans to be especially gracious to those other veterans who did not see combat.  Combat veterans know the peacetime veterans joined with combat as a possibility, and usually they seem almost grateful that the peacetime veterans did not have to witness what they themselves did.  

So like bikers, men and women who serve or served don’t care in which branch the other person served.  They don’t care about ethnicity or sex.  They don’t stop and ask about politics or religion or a favorite ball team.  They don’t care about combat experience or a lack thereof.  They greet each other because they know they are people with a shared bond of being willing to put their lives on the line if called upon to defend the Nation and its citizens.

Wouldn’t our nation be a better place if all citizens were like bikers and service personnel or veterans?  Could we be friendly to each other, treating each other like brothers and sisters, with no thought to what could otherwise divide us?  To have this kind of Nation may seem like a pipe dream right now but it all starts somewhere.  Maybe that somewhere is you and maybe your friendliness will grow like another wave- the wave that starts with one person or a handful of friends sitting in a ball stadium that swells into almost everyone participating and watching out for their coming opportunities to keep participating.