Motorcyclists escort soldiers' remains to Arlington Cemetery

"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."

A member of the Cherokee tribe, Indian Dave said the spirit of the ride is catching on as the miles roll under the wheels across California, Nevada, and now Utah.

It is the spirit of Mays, a Buffalo Soldier who was shot during an 1889 ambush in Arizona while he defended a military payroll equivalent to $1 million today during an attempted robbery. Wounded in both legs, he walked and crawled two miles for help and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Denied a government pension, he later died in an Arizona hospital and was resurrected by federal court order from the All Souls pauper grave so he could join the escort.

Or the spirit of Dunn, who was a combat medic in Vietnam where his base was overrun and he ferried the wounded to safety — doctoring them to life — while risking his own. He later went on to foster more than 200 children before his death.

Although Callahan is making the journey with his daughter, the overarching mission of the Missing in America Project is just that — to identify and locate the remains of forgotten veterans sitting on shelves in mortuaries across the country.

Just shy of three years old, the organization has already identified the remains of more than 500 veterans and facilitated the interment of close to 400.

Then, there was this ride, which one organizer said has taken on a life of its own.

"Everyone wants to help and be part of it," said Bud Thieme, one of the four founding members of the project, describing the biker escorts, the people traveling in cars and vans and trucks and the communities hosting parades and picnics when they roll into town.

And they are remembering the ones once forgotten.

"If they are left on a shelf they are left behind," he said.

Today, the escort will pull into Colorado, where another escort of bikers, cars and caravans will help Callahan and Dunn and Mays across the state into Kansas. And so on and so on into Indiana and into West Virginia, and finally, Washington, D.C., and Arlington National Cemetery.

As Kurt Falkner, head of the Utah POW/MIA group, said, "It's the least that we can do."

For more information on the ride across America, as well as a detailed map, visit miap.us.

E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com