Pentagon Silent After Refusing Permit for Annual POW-MIA Motorcycle RideKyle Morris 6 May 2021
The Pentagon has blamed coronavirus health concerns for the rejection of a permit for the Rolling to Remember motorcycle ride to honor POW/MIA veterans, according to event organizers.
The event, formerly known as Rolling Thunder, is being organized by AMVETS and is held annually each Memorial Day in Washington, DC. This year, organizers expect to draw in an estimated 50,000 visitors who want to pay tribute to veterans.
Joe Chenelly, the national executive director of AMVETS, spoke to Breitbart News about the permit rejection and said the permit was applied for last May, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chenelly said once AMVETS applied for the permit, the Pentagon “wouldn’t communicate with us” and, to this day, “still haven’t really communicated with us.”
In early March, Chenelly said the Pentagon approved the permit, but he was wary of the approval because there were no meetings that typically take place in order to get safety protocols in place. Upon calling the permit office, Chenelly said the permit was confirmed and he was told to contact Pentagon police to work on conducting a meeting “in a few weeks.”
“I called the Pentagon police and said, ‘let’s work together,’ and for eight days we did that,” Chenelly said, noting that he had already began planning for other sites in fear that the Pentagon would back out over COVID-19 concerns.
“Once we got confirmed for the permit … we stopped working with them and then eight days later the Pentagon calls and says, ‘Sorry, we made a mistake, we shouldn’t have sent that to you. You don’t have the permit. We will tell you when we make a decision,'” Chenelly said, paraphrasing remarks from the Pentagon.
Upon asking who the “decision makers are” so meetings could be arranged, Chenelly said he received no response, even after formulating a well-thought-out safety plan regarding the coronavirus.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/05/06/pentagon-silent-refusing-permit-annual-pow-mia-motorcycle-ride/