Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 12, 1995 TAG: 9511130100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT D. McFADDEN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Planes roared overhead, tanks rumbled by, cannons boomed and church bells pealed across the city and the nation as huge Norman Rockwell crowds turned out and 26,000 marchers - led by Medal of Honor winners and veterans of many conflicts - joined the Nation's Parade, the official culmination of four years of celebrations marking World War II's 50th anniversary.
Around the country, there were wreath-layings, religious services, hometown parades and other ceremonies to commemorate Veterans Day with solemnity and jubilation.
In New York, the parade - with many older veterans; melodies from the 1940s and traditional march music; and vintage tanks, jeeps and other ordnance from WWII - had an old-fashioned feel, harking back to a time when war brought out the poignancy of ordinary lives and people remembered those who served at Bataan and Corregidor, Inchon and Pleiku.
``The significance of this day is not here, but all over our country in the cemeteries where the coffins are,'' said Thomas Gorman, an Army tank crewman in World War II. ``You never forget. They're the ones who paid for our freedom. All the years pass, and you never get over it.''
His blue eyes welled with tears and he apologized, ``You see good friends die, and you ask, `Why am I here?'''
The organizers had expressed hopes for nearly a million spectators, but there was no disappointment when the police put the crowd at more than 500,000 for a parade that had not drawn substantial followings for decades and was always overshadowed by the St. Patrick's Day Parade and other ethnic celebrations.
Cheering, applauding, waving American flags and signs that said ``Thank you,'' calling out appreciation and encouragement, people stood seven or eight deep along Fifth Avenue, and organizers said the largest Veterans Day crowd since 1945 had turned out to honor those who served in North Africa, Europe, the South Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and in peacetime as well.
It was a glorious parade, with 50 Pearl Harbor survivors, many in Hawaiian shirts; airborne units in berets and camouflage fatigues; former prisoners of war; submariners; Air Force pilots; members of the Women's Army Corps; a large contingent of Filipino survivors of the Bataan Death March; floats remembering field medics and the USO; and everywhere soldiers, sailors and marines in uniforms from long ago, with battle ribbons, medals, service bars and badges.
The parade's two oldest participants, both corporals in World War I, were 107-year-old Herbert Young of Harlem and 97-year-old James Jones of New Rochelle, N.Y. Young and Jones were unable to march, but they waved and saluted the stars and stripes and rode with a soldier's bearing in an open 1923 Ford.
While Young served mostly in the 807th Pioneer Infantry, both were members of the 369th Infantry, the famed all-black unit assigned to the French army because black Americans were not allowed to fight alongside their white countrymen.
As the marchers stepped off shortly after 11 a.m., church bells across the city and the nation began ringing, tolling 50 times to mark the years since the end of World War II.
At noon, cannons set up near the reviewing stand on Grand Army Plaza blazed a 21-gun salute. Later, five vintage fighter planes from World War II, four F-16 jets, and a Stealth bomber swept low over the avenue, giving the crowds a glimpse of terrifying power.
by CNB