Big doings in Emerald City tomorrow, according to a couple of Standard-Examiner articles:Veteran's day parade tomorrow, announces today's Standard-Examiner headline.
And for a little history, here's this great earlier Std-Ex story.
Be there or be square, fellow Emerald City U.S. military veterans.
And to rattle the memories of those vets who may have forgotten how to march, or even rout step properly, here's a the familiar and authentic U.S. military marching/running cadence (Duckworth) chant, going back at least to the Korean War Era, which we're sure all late 20th/early 21st century military folks will well remember, even in its most recent, probably politically-correct and watered-down manifestation[s].
Brings a tear to yer humble blogmeister's jaded eye, actually... [sniff]
We call upon all U.S. military veterans -- and lifetime patriotic civilians to get downtown tomorrow for the Emerald City Veteran's Day Parade.
Rudi will be there, out of uniform, as per normal when he's off-duty & mustered from the U.S. Army for +26 years; and Rudi will also be participating in a short veteran's gathering/reunion at the Kokomo Klub after the parade, one click off the parade/UTA #603 bus route.
This is the first time in a long while that U.S. military veterans have been honored with a parade in Emerald City, as the above history article reports.
We hope Emerald City citizens will show up in force tomorrow morning to support the troops present and past; and that the turnout will mandate the doing of this as an annual Emerald City event.
Update 11/12/06 7:58 a.m. MT: Rudi attended yesterday's parade, and had a danged fine time of it. What the crowd in attendance lacked in sheer numbers, it made up for in wild enthusiasm. There was much spirited interaction between the folks who stood on the curb, cheering, waving and saluting, and the hundreds of active-duty military personnel, veterans and other participants (including city council members Stephens & Jeske) who were officially part of the parade.
Numerous wheelchairs were in evidence, as a stark reminder of the true nature of the sacrifices made by men and women who wear the uniform in the service of their country. And in the olde-tyme blue-collar spirit of Emerald City, we enjoyed the 2-1/2 block long Emerald City Harley-Davidson parade unit, with many riders sporting Vietnam War-era military insignia and apparel -- something which particularly touched your sentimental blogmeister's heart.
We've uploaded a few snapshots of the event to our Picasa web photo album, for those who were unfortunate enought to have missed it. Although the camera lighting was poor, we believe these images do generally capture the atmosphere of this fantastic event as it transpired.
We sincerely hope the Emerald City Veteran's Day Parade will become an annual event; and we congratulate and thank all organizers, participants and attendees for putting together what was a genuinely heart-warming and spiritually-uplifting event.
