Annual veterans parade held in downtown Jackson

JACKSON, Tenn. — Veterans were honored in a special way Saturday morning.

It’s the weekend before Veterans Day, and those who fought for our country were honored in the sixth annual Downtown Veterans Parade.

“We’ll do the Corridor of Honor, which is Liberty Street from Chester to College Street. So we’ve invited all veterans to decorate their vehicles and come down to the Civic Center and join the parade,” said Jackie Utley, the chair of West Tennessee Veterans Day Committee.

This parade is meant to honor and recognize all veterans for their service. Tennessee Senator Ed Jackson was a veteran himself, and he says he appreciates the parade.

“We do need to recognize across the country, America. We have such great freedoms in this country, and it’s because we have preserved those freedoms with the veterans and those that served for our country,” Jackson said.

This parade is once a year. However, some at the parade said that’s not enough.

They say they would like to see more events like this, where veterans are honored for what they’ve done for our country.

“The young people need to see this, especially with what’s going on, not just in our country, but around the world. They need to remember so that we don’t repeat what’s happened before. We don’t need war. We need love and peace and understanding between all people,” said veteran Sarah A. Johnson-Bain.

Donald Rouse, a 90-year-old veteran, says seeing the veterans in attendance of the parade gives the younger generation a glimpse of who actually fought for the freedom that they have.

“To me, all these young people, they get the privilege to see how they got the freedom they got right now. If it hadn’t been for us older people, they wouldn’t have nothing,” Rouse said.

Many attendees say they are grateful that COVID-19 did not stop the parade from happening.

Utley says the parade is normally larger. However, due to the pandemic, the crowd and participants were smaller.