You can pay tribute to veterans this weekend. Here’s a look at some of the parades and celebrations.
Saturday, the city of Albany is hosting the biggest Veterans Day parade west of the Mississippi. That begins at 11 a.m. F-15 Eagle fighter jets with the Oregon Air National Guard are scheduled to conduct a flyovers around 11:45 a.m.
In Roseburg, veterans will hold their yearly parade Monday, Nov. 12. It starts at 11 a.m. at Roseburg Town Center.
On Sunday, the Lane County Veterans Day Parade will be held at 1:30 p.m. in Springfield. The parade route begins at 21st and Olympic streets, continues onto Mohawk Blvd. and ends near G Street.
South Willamette Valley’s first honor flight returned in October from the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Plans are already under way for two more honor flights in the spring. A fundraiser dinner is planned for Friday night at the Shadow Hills Country Club. It starts at 6 p.m. Tickets are available at the door. They cost $45 each. More than 60 local veterans are on the waiting list, hoping to be on the next flight.
Other cities are also hosting celebrations. At 11 a.m. in Eugene, the annual 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month Ceremony will be at the Veterans Memorial Building 1626 Willamette St. Sunday. At 11 a.m. in Bend on Sunday, the Veterans Day Parade will march through downtown. In Florence, you can catch the seventh annual veterans parade through old town starting at 1 p.m Sunday.
Click here for a list of more Veterans Day events happening throughout Oregon.
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Kelly says:
November 11, 2012 at 5:56 pm (UTC -7)
I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze;
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform,
So young, so tall, so proud;
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He’d stand out in any crowd.
I thought… how many men like him
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?
How many pilots’ planes shot down
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves
No, Freedom is not Free.
I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still;
I listened to the bugler play,
And felt a sudden chill;
I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant “Amen”
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend;
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No. Freedom is not Free!