San Antonio – It takes a lot of hobby to start out a custom from the bottom up. Delia Guajardo had the power and keenness in 1999 when she was once tabbed to arrange the San Antonio Veterans Day Parade.
By 2000, a small workforce of veterans had been cheered on via their households and buddies because the small workforce marched for the primary reliable parade.
“It took us 20 minutes to get from point A to point B,” Guajardo recalls. Her husband was once Army veteran Ysrael Roy Guajardo, Sr. It was once veteran Carlos Valencia Cavazos who first approached her.
Antonio Pena Bustamante and J.R. Garza, each veterans, had been in that workforce that marched and so they had been additionally section of the organizing committee. They keep in mind the primary parade that just about didn’t occur.
“It really was freezing. It was sleeting. It was raining a little bit and the wind was pretty strong,” Bustamante mentioned.
“There was no Military City, USA. We were there was it began and then, of course, the mayor officially gave us that title,” Garza mentioned.
For Bustamante and different Vietnam War veterans, that small march intended a lot.
“It was a small group, but it was still a parade for us. And from then on, you know, they’d continued for quite a while,” Bustamante mentioned.
Every 12 months, the parade grew in entries and attendance. Now, hundreds participate in the parade and the parade path is longer.
A brand new workforce now leads the organizing of the parade. Only a few contributors of that unique organizing committee are nonetheless round to inform its historical past.
“We’ve done our share. Now it’s time for the younger generation, the next generation, to take over,” mentioned Garza.
The 2023 United States Military Veterans Parade Association starts at 11 a.m. from Milam Park along Houston Street to the Alamo.
Copyright 2023 via – All rights reserved.
]