Motorcyclists escort soldiers' remains to Arlington Cemetery

WENDOVER, Nev. — Although Johnnie Franklin Callahan died in 1995, James William Dunn passed last May, and it's been 82 years since Isaiah Mays last drew breath, they rode into Utah on Friday, escorted by hundreds of reverent fans who'd never met them, never talked to them.

They didn't need to.

It's enough said that the three are U.S. military veterans, bound for a final resting place May 29 at Arlington National Cemetery, where full honors will be accorded.

The Honors at Arlington escort by the Missing in America Project is the first of its kind — in terms of scale, in terms of mission — to take dead U.S. veterans on a cross-country tour for recognition long denied.

"It is an incredible dream come true for me," said Patti Callahan, Johnnie Callahan's daughter. "I can't begin to tell you how much this means to my father."

Patti Callahan is riding escort for her father to Arlington, a place she has sought to have him buried since 1995. Johnnie Callahan was a World War II veteran who plucked a live Japanese bomb off the deck of a ship and threw it into the ocean, saving lives and later earning a Silver Star for his bravery.

"He always said he wanted to be buried there (Arlington) and have a 21-gun salute and I told him, 'I will do that, Daddy.'"

Now, the little girl who once tried to fit into her father's Navy uniform is wearing black leathers and climbing aboard a motorcycle for the first time in her life.

"I've had my dad since he died," she said, describing how she hung onto his ashes and the reason for the escort. "I haven't left him yet."

The escort by the Missing in America Project started Thursday in Sacramento and crossed into Utah Friday afternoon, where a change of command ceremony officially passed the escort duty to Utah groups all too willing to participate.

"This is a huge, huge deal. It means a lot to us and others in the organization. Some of us are veterans and some of us are not," said Bill Roop, spokesman for the POW/MIA Organization of Utah. "But we all take a lot of pride in our veterans and we want to do the best we can to make sure that everyone gets the honors they have earned and rightfully should get. It's not about us."

It was on Friday, and is until May 29, about Callahan, Dunn and Mays — riding in urns on the back of a custom-designed "bike of love" sporting a buffalo head in the front and bear rug draped over the back.

The precious cargo is being maneuvered across country by "Indian Dave," who was parked behind the handlebars of the unorthodox hearse at a truck stop in Tooele County.

"I am honored. It is a fantastic thing," he said, emotionally. "Let's just put it this way: I have to keep a crying towel in my bag up front."