Patriot Guard Riders back up soldiers

Special for to Green Valley News

Sam Barnard retired here a few years ago still carrying with him, like many of his fellow Vietnam-era vets, memories of the poor treatment he and his buddies received in the turbulent ’60s.

The decorated Alaska state trooper may have discovered a way to put a bit of that behind him, organizing and leading a southern Arizona chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders, whose “missions” take them to funerals for fallen military and law enforcement personnel, as well as frequent airport send-offs and welcomes home.

Barnard can’t forget a sign decades ago in a neighborhood near his naval base in Norfolk, Va., that read, “Dogs and sailors keep off lawn,” so he found the Patriot Guard Riders a perfect way to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

“Here I thought I was serving my country,” he said, “and yet I was being verbally abused and not appreciated.”

“We want them to know we appreciate their sacrifice,” he said of his group’s support of active-duty personnel and veterans.

The PGR was formed in 2005 by groups of mostly motorcyclists as an effort to protect the families at armed forces funerals from protesters. Initially, and still notably, many of those assaults came from Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., whose signs claim that the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is divine retribution for tolerance of homosexuality in this country. Barnard said his group has yet to see any strictly anti-war protesters.

Some states, including Kansas, have passed laws prohibiting picketing at funerals.

“They can still get a permit to protest,” he said, “so we make sure our flag lines are set up so family members won’t see the protesters.”

Now a national, non-profit organization with an estimated 160,000 members, including 17,000 in Arizona, Barnard heads up a group of about 280 in this area, two-thirds Vietnam era vets.

Six are Green Valley residents and three of those are veterans.

If invited by the family, their group rides to the ceremony and sets up lines with American flags, some praying, some saluting, shielding family members from any interference, often leading the procession as an escort to the cemetery.

“We do only what the family wants,” Barnard said. “We don’t have any particular format.”

When military personnel return or are shipped out, the group gathers at the installation or airport and lines up their flags to create a support corridor.

“We’re there to say goodbye or welcome home,” Barnard said, “and to let them know there’s someone who cares about them.”

“That would have been nice back in the ’60s,” he added.

The group has recently increased their efforts to offer support of any veteran or fallen fireman or law enforcement officer, as long as the family wants them there.

They lined the procession route for Tucson police officer Eric Hite, killed in the line of duty in June.

Barnard, a wilderness survival expert once named Alaska’s trooper of the year, was top shooter on his pistol team, and started and commanded a SWAT team. His long career as chief investigator saw him dealing primarily with homicides and sexual assaults over a 300,000-square-mile area of a state with no sheriff’s department. A highlight was solving the case of a serial murderer who killed five young girls in Fairbanks.

He also was awarded the Boy Scouts top civilian honor for organizing Explorer posts that produced many law enforcement officers still on the job in Alaska.

The southern Arizona chapter has ridden to and attended services from Ft. Huachuca to Yuma, from Phoenix to the border, 45 since their first mission in 2006. Their web site is www.patriotguard.org.

“It gives me a feeling that I’m doing something for the family, and every time we welcome them home, I can see nothing but good about that,” he said.

“Law enforcement people put their lives on the line for their community and veterans put their lives on the line for their country, and that deserves respect.”