DAYTON, Ohio — On a cold and snowy Saturday, a new tradition was launched in Dayton: a Veterans Day parade through the grounds of the Veterans Administration Medical Center.
What You Need To Know
- This is the first Veterans Day parade at the VA Medical Center in Dayton
- Medical Center Director Mark Murdoch and his team came up with the idea to honor veterans
- The event also included a resource fair for veterans and their families
“We really wanted to honor veterans here in the Miami Valley area, since we have been taking care of veterans for more than 150 years here,” said Mark Murdoch, the VA Medical Center director.
“It’s amazing the people who participated in the parade, how they just stood up against the weather and same thing with our spectators and we’re just so grateful they’re out here.”
“If it wasn’t at the Dayton VA, where there’s veterans everywhere, it would have been in question whether the parade was going to happen or not,” said float designer Alex Temple. “But our veterans they had to go through snow, they had to go through desert storm, they had to go through the heat and they did a lot of unbearable things that people today can’t even think of and so we had to make sure that we showed up for the veterans as they did for us years before.”
Temple and his father created a replica of the Iwo Jima Memorial honoring some Marines on a mission in World War II. The float also featured the flags representing all the branches.
“The military is a band of brothers and we wanted to showcase that with our float,” Temple said.
“Both my grandparents were in the Korean War and that’s very special to me. We also have some of our team at Pinnacle Flagpole Company who are on active duty and that hits home for us.”
They’ve brought their float to nearly a dozen venues in their first year of hitting parades around Ohio. And that’s just the beginning of what they have in mind.
“There is a program called honor flights that they take veterans to Washington D.C. to show them all the memorials but there’s not really anything bringing the memorials to them,” Temple said. “So that’s kind of our main focus is we want to create memorials that all of our veterans and the people we should look up to fought for.”
That’s also the mission of a veteran who’s inspired many people in Ohio and across the country. Benjamin Thomas Fisher II is a motivational speaker who created a float that features heroes in the time since the 9/11 attack.
“What we have on the float is what I consider the highest level of integrity in our country,” Fisher said.
The float features a varied group including firefighters, veterans and police officers to the teachers in the Sandy Hook school shooting.
“She stayed with the kids even though she could have ran away to protect her own life,” Fisher said.
He also included a female border patrol officer.
“She’s not protecting against immigration but protecting against the fentanyl and sex trafficking that’s affecting our children,” Fisher said.
The float also includes a tribute to doctors and nurses who answered the call during the pandemic, something that is personal to Fisher, who served as a medic in the Navy.
“The United States abbreviated spells ‘US.’ It doesn’t spell Black US or white US or male US or female US. It doesn’t spell gay US or straight US. It just spells ‘US’ and it’s time that all of us get involved.”
Fisher and Temple say they will bring their floats back to the parade next year.
“For our first parade, we’ve learned a tremendous amount,” Murdoch said. “We’re very excited about next year.”
In addition to the parade, the event included a resource fair that served up sandwiches and help for veterans and their families.
