It was a happy parade, and a sad one, too, with open demonstrations of love as well as a touch of bitterness.
For nearly five hours, a police-estimated 200,000 marchers–clad in neat military uniforms, ragged khakis and even three-piece suits–walked in loose formation through the streets of downtown Chicago Friday, cheered and showered with confetti by an estimated 500,000 more, receiving their ”welcome home”
salute for a war that ended 11 years ago.
If the Christmas parade is for children and St. Patrick`s Day is for the Irish, the Chicago Vietnam Veterans Parade was for everyone.
Unlike most parades, there was little separation of parader and parade-watcher.
Spectators shouted ”We love you” and ”Welcome back.” The Vietnam vets, who came from all over the country, shouted back, ”Thank you,” often running out of their ranks to hug and kiss men and women alike along the sidelines.
The historic event, which greatly outstripped a similar Vietnam veterans parade in New York City last year that drew 25,000 marchers, began, because of the large number of marchers, 30 minutes early at 9:30 a.m. at Olive Park alongside Navy Pier. The park is named after Chicago Medal of Honor Winner Milton Lee Olive III, who was killed in 1965 when he threw himself on a live grenade to protect the lives of four colleagues.
It ended, ironically, in Grant Park, the scene of violent antiwar protests in the 1960s when the war in Vietnam was at its peak.
On the 2.8-mile route, spectators began gathering as early as 8:30 a.m., with many persons tucking themselves into their old military uniforms to show their solidarity with those who would march.
It was led by the veterans` former wartime commander, Gen. William Westmoreland, who was grand marshal.
Though the pre-parade crowds were festive, eager and in a party mood as they heard the bands and police sirens approaching, when the head of the parade arrived, it set the tone for the rest of the day.
Westmoreland, dressed in a crisp military uniform, strode proudly at the front, flanked by two legless veterans, one in a wheelchair and the other smiling and pulling himself along the asphalt on his padded hands, arms and stumps of legs.
Behind him marched a contingent of Vietnam veterans, some in civilian clothes and others in baggy fatigues and battered hats, bearded and long-haired.
It was a scene reflected for the rest of the parade, a mix of old and new, reviving memories of a war that had torn apart a nation, with this parade one of the first major efforts to carry out its theme: to heal old wounds.
And in many of the marching contingents, it was clear that the wounds, though more than a decade old, remained.
One veteran carried a sign saying, ”The American dream is a job.”
Another carried a post with a photograph of Jane Fonda on its top, labeled ”Hanoi Jane.”
One marcher sported a T-shirt bearing the slogan, ”Good soldiers, gutless politicians.”
A Veterans for Peace group carried a sign saying, ”Honor the warriors, not the war.” A marcher from another group saw a similar sign along the parade route and shouted out, ”That makes a lot of sense.”
And one mustachioed marcher, apparently trying to capitalize on the warm feelings of the spectators, especially the women, carried a sign inscribed with his hotel room number.
The marchers found good crowds along the first portion of the parade route, from Navy Pier west on Grand Avenue and then south on State Street to Wacker Drive.
A favored vantage point was on North Michigan Avenue, where spectators looked down onto Grand Avenue, waving and cheering the surprised marchers from above.
A larger surprise, one that brought tears to the veterans` eyes, came when they turned south from Wacker onto La Salle Street and looked down the city`s narrow financial cavern as tons of confetti, shredded computer printout sheets, ripped-up telephone books and ribbons of bathroom tissue were thrown from windows and rooftops, lofted upward by a steady northerly wind and carried down La Salle for blocks.
The La Salle Street crowds swelled to 10 deep at intersections and even greater than that at Washington Street, where television stations had set up their live broadcasting platforms and a reviewing stand public-address system announced the arrival of each contingent.
It was a day for the veterans and the people, and though politicians, such as Mayor Harold Washington, Gov. James Thompson and Atty. Gen. Neil Hartigan were on the reviewing stand, they kept their politicking to a minimum. Thompson`s gubernatorial opponent, Adlai Stevenson, a former marine, marched in the parade, he explained, not because he supported the war in Vietnam but because he wanted to pay a tribute to those who fought in it.
As the thousands of veterans marched by, some on foot, some in wheelchairs or on crutches, or, in some cases, in Veterans Administration hospital buses for those unable to cover the route on their own, the spectators exchanged shouts of encouragement and welcome.
A police officer at La Salle Street and Wacker Drive put a green
”Vietnam Veteran and Proud of It” cap on his head, but sheepishly removed it when a nearby white-shirted sergeant stared at him.
”He looked better the other way,” shouted a passing veteran to the sergeant, who shouted back, ”I`m turning my back,” which he did. The police officer wore the cap for the rest of the parade.
And as the sergeant turned his back on the slight defiance from the uniform of the day order, police officers all along the route apparently turned their backs on the open beer drinking, a strictly enforced law in other parades.
The crowd`s enthusiasm did not dampen during the lengthy parade, and, in fact, during the noon lunch hour the crowds even grew larger as financial district workers decided to skip lunch and watch the parade.
Outside an office building across La Salle Street from the State of Illinois Center, three well-dressed businessmen in their mid-30s stood at the building`s door and watched the parade for a few minutes.
”I don`t feel like lunch,” one said. ”Let`s go over and see the Wall.” The three then strode off to Grant Park to view the half-size replica of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington that is on display in Chicago as part of the four-day long veterans` observance.
Some veterans along the parade route had mixed feelings about the event.
Glenn Pacyga, a Southwest Side truck driver who served with the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta from 1967 through 1968, said: ”I`m out here to support those guys who are still in hospitals. I`m here for the MIAs, too. What about the guys left behind?”
It was a theme often raised in the parade, in which nearly every contingent carried a black and white MIA-POW flag and where floats sometimes carried bamboo cages with ”prisoners” enclosed.
Loral Valley, 35, of the Northwest Side, stood in front of the State of Illinois Center with a group of children and adults and held a long red and white banner. It carried the blue-lettered inscription, ”Thank you, Vets.”
”I was with the `Hell, no, we won`t go` group during the war,” she said. ”I participated in a lot of marches. Today, it`s like a catharsis. It`s a way to say I`m sorry I didn`t support them then.”
Some came not to remember the war and the division it provoked, but because they believed that those who had served should get a thank you, albeit belated.
”It was sad; no one knows about the war,” said Kathy Cox, 19, a secretary at a law firm across from City Hall. ”I`ve never learned about the war in school.
”I just know it was a sad war. They had no welcome home.”
The passing groups of veterans and supporters at times gave a solemn statement on how deeply the war cut through every layer of America`s social fabric.
There were all-black organizations from Chicago and an all-white contingent from New Glarus, Wis. Ethnic groups, such as Italians, Hispanics and Sioux Indians, marched in small groups, while huge bodies of men in khakis made dog-like ”woofing” sounds as they walked under the banners of the 101st Airborne, the 1st Infantry Division and the 11th Infantry Brigade.
Older veterans from older wars also marched: members of the American Legion, the Amvets, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans–men who had been saluted and welcomed back in similar, smaller parades all over the country when their times of battle had ended. Friday they joined in the parade and in the salute for the Vietnam veterans who had not shared the nation`s gratitude they had once received.
In the parade`s final hour, an Army veteran from Milwaukee who had marched along most of the parade route with his young daughter on his shoulders, moved to the sidelines to let his daughter see the rest of the parade.
He plopped down on a curb near La Salle and Randolph Streets and popped open a cold can of beer, as his daughter curled up beside him, exhausted from the day`s events.
”It`s a long parade, daddy,” she said quietly.
”It was a long war, honey,” he answered, took a long gulp from his cold can and watched his welcome home.