By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — I’ll admit I went into this one with a preconceived notion.

At Halloween in the Hollow, I stood right across from the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association for much of the night handing out hot apple cider for the Lynchburg Chamber, and I spent a good part of the evening studying them.

There were leather vests, cigars, and at least one beard that appeared to be making a break for the knees. If I’d run into that crew in the Kroger parking lot, I figured, I might walk a little faster to my car.

So when I talked with local Brian Bailey on Veterans Day, I asked him straight out. Do people ever react to the leather and the bikes before they know who you are?

“No, I don’t notice it,” he said. “We’re pretty friendly.”

And that was the end of my angle.

For the record, Bailey suspected his wife, Meghan, put me up to this interview. She did not. But Meghan, who was there for the conversation, had her own theory about why people warm up to the group so fast.

“I think another thing is they get to see the wife’s aspect of it, too,” she said. “They see women over there as well that are smiling and welcoming. ‘Oh, you want to go see the bike? Come see the bike.’”

Finding the ones who don’t ask

Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association Chapter 18-11 is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit made up of combat veterans from across southern Middle Tennessee. Most members come from Lynchburg, Tullahoma, Manchester and Winchester, and a few ride in from as far as Chattanooga. The chapter doesn’t have a clubhouse. It meets at the VFW 1893 on Woods Reservoir, which lets the group use its space.

Almost everything the chapter does comes back to one goal, Bailey said: “Really, anything that we can reach other veterans and combat veterans like us.”

That means going where veterans are. At Thunder in the Hollow in Lynchburg this year, chapter members talked with 10 or 12 veterans they had never met before. They ride in Veterans Day parades and Christmas parades. They’ve built wheelchair ramps for people who needed them. This weekend, they’re headed out to split firewood for a veteran who can’t do it himself anymore. And around Veterans Day, several members spent their day off visiting veterans at area nursing homes.

A lot of that help goes to people who never asked for it.

“It’s us trying to reach out and help veterans that we can help that need it, and not necessarily ask for it,” Bailey said. “But if someone in their family tells us about it, then we can step in and try to help, financially or like splitting wood or something.”

Getting the brotherhood back

Bailey served in the Army from 2006 to 2010 including a 15-month deployment to Iraq in 2008 and 2009. He found the CVMA in 2019.

Asked what drew him in, he didn’t take long to answer.

“It was brothers,” he said. “That I didn’t have since 2018.”

For Bailey, the bike and the people on the bikes beside him are how he got that back.

“It’s always good to have someone you can depend on,” he said. “And if you’re having a bad day, you always have someone to talk to.”

A family you choose instead of the one you’re born into?, I ask.

“Exactly,” he said.

Bailey and Meghan live in Moore County with their daughters: Callie is 19 and ToriBeth is 10

An association, not a club

Don’t call it a motorcycle club. The CVMA is an association, and there’s no president or vice president. The chapter is led by a commander and an XO, or executive officer, who serves as second in command.

“We don’t go by anything really MC related, because we’re an association,” Bailey said.

Full members are combat veterans, every one of them deployed to a combat zone, and they come from all branches of the military. Veterans who served but didn’t see combat can join as support members, and the chapter also has an auxiliary.

The ages run wide. One of the oldest members of the chapter is a Vietnam veteran. The youngest served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As for the bikes, the only real rule is size. A motorcycle has to be 500cc or bigger, which rules out mopeds and not much else.

“You can ride anything from Yamaha to Indian to Harley,” Bailey said.

Dinner on Veterans Day

This Veterans Day, one of the chapter’s auxiliary members opened their home and cooked dinner for local veterans who needed one. The rest of the chapter showed up too, to eat, talk and swap stories.

The chapter pays for its work mostly through donations from anyone in the community who wants to help, plus one big fundraiser: the Spring Thaw Poker Run, held every April. The 2027 run will include a raffle for a motorcycle. Details are on the chapter’s Facebook page.

“We’re not the quietest group,” Bailey said. “You definitely know we’re around.” •

So no, they’re not scary. Loud, maybe.

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