Residents from all over Queens are invited to come out and honor military veterans past and present during the Queens Veterans Day Parade this weekend in Middle Village.
This year’s parade will take place on Sunday, Nov. 8, at noon at the intersection of 80th Street and Metropolitan Avenue. The parade will proceed west along Metropolitan Avenue and will conclude with a commemorative ceremony at Christ the King High School, located at 68-02 Metropolitan Ave.
“This parade was created because local veterans [may] not make it to the National Veterans Parade in Manhattan because of mental ailments, physical ailments — PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] played [a] big part of it if they can’t travel underground on the train or over bridges, they don’t like crowds or they can’t wait all day,” said Mike Bilski, member of the Queens Veterans Day Committee. “The most common thing is they can’t get off of work on Veterans Day. Our parade is always on a Sunday, the Sunday before Veterans Day. The parade is short, only a half of a mile. Our ceremony is inside with ample seating for the disabled. It’s a good hometown parade with people cheering on the sidelines waving Old Glory.”
Elected officials that are expected to attend include Senator Chuck Schumer, Congresswoman Grace Meng, state Senator Joseph Addabbo, Councilman Eric Urich, Assemblyman Mike Miller, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and more, according to the Queens Veterans Day Committee.
“We will have seven World War II vehicles from Bayside Queens Classic Commander Cars and 30 classic cars from the East Coast Car Association of Glendale,” Bilski said.
New York Guard Commander Stephen A. Bucaria, brigadier general for the New York Guard, will be the parade’s grand marshal. The parade will be dedicated to the memory of U.S. Army Private First Class Le Ron A. Wilson, who was killed in action in Baghdad, Iraq on July 6, 2007.
“What we need the most for veterans is for people to stand on the sidelines waving Old Glory and saying thank you,” Bilski said. “Our veterans, they sacrifice so much for us and no matter what we do for them it is nothing compared to what they’ve done for us, for our freedom, so please come out.”
