The New York City Veterans Day Parade has always been more than just a 30-block march up Manhattan’s 5th Avenue — but this year it’s taking on added significance.
Not only because Sunday’s parade is now a national attraction, with the Fox Network broadcasting the event live in 10 US cities.
And not only because it will take special notice of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War.
This year, participants will be collecting coats for the victims of Superstorm Sandy — so it’s part parade and part relief rally.
It’s an honorable gesture from folks who have already given so much to their country and to their fellow citizens.
Spectators are asked not only to come honor these veterans but to bring warm coats to be collected along the parade route, for eventual distribution to folks displaced by the storm.
Former Mayor Ed Koch is one of the parade’s grand marshals this year — a fitting tribute to a distinguished World War II combat veteran and constant ally of New York’s vets during his years in City Hall.
Koch is as boisterous as any New Yorker but rarely talks of his Army service. (His autobiography offers four words on the topic: “I went to war.”) There’s more to that story, of course: As an infantry sergeant, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
As mayor, Koch helped revive the Veterans Day Parade into the event it has become — and was a driving force in the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Plaza downtown and the 1982 Welcome Home Parade for the troops who fought in that war.
It’s nice to see Koch get his due — and to shine a spotlight on the works of all the men and women who’ve worn the uniform.
Because American troops don’t just serve in foreign wars or behind the walls of military bases — a fact made clear by the hundreds of Marines, Army engineers and National Guardsmen who helped New York recover in Sandy’s wake.
Their service continues all the days of their lives — as they march to honor their brothers in arms, and as they turn the Veterans Day Parade into yet another outlet of good works.
Sunday kicks off with an opening ceremony at 5th Avenue and 24th Street at the Eternal Light Monument and continues with a wreath laying at 11 a.m. at 26th Street.
From there, the parade heads north to 56th Street, with a review stand at 41st Street, and concludes at about 3:30 p.m.
Please take time this Sunday to honor the troops who give so much to this country and this city.
And to New York’s thousands of veterans: Thank you for your service.