Question

Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage
JILL DUBISCH
Summary Starting in 1996, sociologist Raymond Michalowski and anthropologist Jill Dubisch joined a group of motorcyclists riding on a trip called the Run for the Wall, a pilgrimage (ritual passage) from California to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
The Run for the Wall was started by a group of Vietnam veterans in 1989 and has occurred every year since. It requires its participants to ride motorcycles from California to Washington, DC, although many join or drop out along the way. The run takes 10 days and includes stops for rest and ceremonies. Communities along the run's route welcome run members and often feed and house them for free. Riders see the run as a pilgrimage that helps heal wounds caused by the war, and serves to honor the dead and "those left behind" (POWs and the missing in action).
Dubisch introduces the concept of pilgrimage as a journey that has a purpose, with a destination that has special meaning. The destination may get its emotional power from its location or symbolic meaning. Pilgrimages are rituals, defined (in Davis-Floyd's words) as "patterned, repetitive, and symbolic enactments of a cultural belief or value." Personal transformation is a key result. Rituals often reenact social myths. They, according to anthropologist Victor Turner, have two poles the ideological and the sensory that can be changed and modified regularly. Pilgrimages are a kind of ritual. They create what Victor and Edith Turner call a liminal state, which is a special period of time between normal routines. Travel is one way to mark such a liminal period.
The Run for the Wall began as a way for veterans to deal with the physical and mental wounds caused by their participation in the Vietnam War, and the indifference and hostility that greeted them when they arrived home. Motorcycles have been associated with veterans' groups since World War II. They symbolize freedom, self-reliance, patriotism, and individualism. Patriotism is especially important to those who make the run and is symbolized by the U.S. flags and eagles that adorn their motorcycles. Riding motorcycles gives a feeling of political power to participants. The machines are not an ordinary way to travel. Riding them also involves danger and hardship; suffering for the cause increases openness to personal change and an eventual feeling of accomplishment.
Dubisch describes several ceremonial events along the run that evoke strong emotions. The wall itself has special power, meaning, and emotional impact. It causes outbursts of grief and recognizes both the individual dead and the departed as a whole. Some riders say they hear the spirits of the dead talking at the wall when they are there at night. This pilgrimage has a lasting, transformational effect on its participants, and illustrates the importance of feelings and emotion associated with religion and ritual.
In "Run for the Wall: An American Pilgrimage," Dubisch notes that the term liminality defines an emotional state that is sparked by ritual ceremony.

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