By Veterans Day parade standards, it was quite memorable, according to Kay Diamond of Glens Falls, N.Y.
“This is a lot bigger than the ones we have back home,” said Diamond, who is visiting her son, Tim Diamond, serving at Fort Leonard Wood.
“Back home, if you blink twice you miss the whole parade,” she said as the last fire engines rolled toward the Pulaski County Courthouse at 11:52 a.m. Tuesday.
By any standard, it was a parade befitting the large contingent of veterans in the Waynesville-St. Robert area.
It was a day that was forecast to be dampened by rain. It was this concern that led Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Cecelia Murray to move the Veterans Day ceremony indoors, to the Community Room of the Courthouse.
“The parade will go on, rain or shine,” Murray proclaimed after announcing the change Monday.
On this day, however, there was no raining on these veterans or their parade.
Children were out of school for the second consecutive day, lining Old Historic Route 66, and everybody’s favorite football team has just posted a big playoff victory the night before, 41-14.
It was a good day, so says Hannah Roberts, a fourth-grader at Freedom Elementary, who was sitting on the curb with her grandmother waiting for the parade to start.
“This is fun. I was off yesterday and today. Last night, we went to the football game and it was good,” Hannah said. “I liked the bus. Yes, the right team won, Waynesville.”
Asked about Veterans Day, and Hannah said she was just talking about its significance with her grandmother, Mary Lou Roberts.
“What did we just talk about?” Roberts said quizzing her granddaughter snuggling next to her for warmth.
“What did we say about 11, 11, 11?”
Reflecting for a moment, Hannah answered.
“That it’s the end of World War II, I mean, World War I,” she said quickly correcting herself.
“It used to be Armistice Day, but now it’s Veterans Day,” the elder Roberts said referring to the Treaty of Versailles that was signed in the town of the same name in France at the end of World War I.
In November, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson
proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day.
Wilson’s act sought to honor veterans who served and died to end the “War to end all Wars,” World War I.
In the 90 years since, veterans, their families and loved ones have gathered at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month to honor veterans and the soldiers lost. Sometimes there are parades. Often not. Nearly always, there are solemn, silent moments. Periods of reflection.
“That’s what we were talking about,” Mary Lou Roberts said, patting Hannah, whose father is a U.S. Marine stationed at Fort Leonard Wood.
It was then, after their own moment of silence, the two refocused on the parade route, glancing westward on Old Route 66 and the color guard approached the street lined with veterans’ families, friends and well-wishers.
There were politicians, firefighters, various veterans organizations, Shriners, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, the Civil Air Patrol, all branches of the military service, Masons, people on horseback, fraternal groups, beauty queens and folks driving vintage autos that have seen nearly as many Veterans Days as they, and there were even some late-model cars.
Also, there was a special veteran: Daniel Patrick Barnes, 31, the Parade Marshal.
Barnes rode in the parade in the back of an El Camino with his wife, Gretchen, and their two children, waving.
It was THIS veteran’s Veterans Day – the best day of his life.
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