Sunday, November 10, 2024–12:50 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Veterans Day is Monday and for the first time in many years, there will be a Veterans Day Parade in Rome.
Bill King with the Exchange Club of Rome is organizing the event.
“I am privileged enough to be able to travel with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier replica that we have at the Exchange Club,” King said. “In all of our travels, which has been 38 states in the last eight years representing not only the exchange club, but the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Tomb Guard Society, it’s been bothering to me to see communities half our size putting on huge events to honor their veterans and I just felt like it was time that we got back on track with it.”
The parade starts at 9:30 a.m. at Synovous Bank on Broad Street and will make its way toward Myrtle Hill Cemetery.
“We have four of our local high school bands,” King said. “We have different military organizations like the VFW, the DAV, the American Legion, and the Marine Corps League. We have a lot of our senior living centers that have veterans so they going to have their vehicles in the parade with their veterans in those vehicles. Some of them are going to be walking. The exciting thing for me is we have a grand marshal for the parade who is a 100-year-old World War II veteran. His name is John Dempsey.
According to King, the parade will also feature a few military vehicles.
“One of our members of the club actually has a collection of military vehicles,” he said. “One of them is going to carry the exchange club. He has a Ford four by military vehicle, Then we’re going to have two motorcycles that are vintage motorcycles. They actually built in 2006 but they replicate World War II-era motorcycles. We are going to escort the grand marshal with those two motorcycles.”
Following the parade, at 11 a.m., the annual Veterans Day Ceremony will be held at Myrtle Hill with a wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of America’s known soldier Charles Graves.