I write about my thinking on this blog. This entry is all about feeling.
Today I watched the parade in my small town. It did not feel right. The parade was lead by the local police force color guard. Follow by more local police, follow by the sheriff forces and their special purpose vehicles, followed by a SWAT team vehicle followed by an imposing army olive drab armored police force assault vehicle sitting high on big wheels. Police forces in military type uniforms and camouflaged combat gear.
Militarized police forces at the forefront of the parade. Following were the traditional parade elements. A few vehicles transporting a few members of various organized vet groups. A band, kids, dogs, old cars, assorted civic groups, vehicles with business names on them, fire trucks at the end and it was all over.
If I organized the parade there would only be two groups. The first would be all those that have lost an immediate family member in any war. The second would all veterans that have ever served in the military. The first group would be proxies for their loved ones killed in wars, the second groups those who stood along side and survived those lost or stood ready to take their place.
Parades are traditional rituals so it could not just be entirely the two groups. The two groups would be at the very end. The beginning is not what the parade is all about. Each group would be proceeded by a banner. Those behind the banner would form up at the beginning or join along the way. Then the parade would be over with with an ending recognition of what is the focus of the parade at the end.
Sure, kind of a Memorial Day tone to a parade that honors the living and deceased for their service. Seems like we have too many of those national days and even more occasions to recognize the military living and dead. There were probably more than a thousand that like me who had served but watched from the sideline as the parade passed by. There were many more that certainly wished that their loved one would be among the vets. They gave also. Both those groups should have been given opportunity to be in the parade, not just spectators.
That kind of finish to the parade would have redeemed the Veteran Day Parade to pay honors to military service members and families of deceased vets at the end that the parade bestowed on first responders at the lead.
That is how I feel about it. I feel very angry about the parade I watched today.
If we really need a parade at all.
A poet would write a poem about it and say it more eloquently than me with fewer words.
Wish I was poetic.
No comments:
Post a Comment