2024 is the 4th annual Cumberland County Veterans Parade!
It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to make an event like this work. We can’t thank everyone enough for their efforts through the years in helping. If you would like to help &/or Sponsor the parade, check out our Join Us page or Contact us!
THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I
There will be a parade in Crossville, Tennessee. This is not a celebratory parade and no gifts will be exchanged. The gifts have already been given and received. This parade is to thank those who gave those gifts. The gift of freedom. The gift of holding your child in safety. The gift of choice in your life. The gift to live without fear.
Our veterans that we honor with this parade, each in their own way stood with their backs to you and faced hell. They never saw your face and you never saw theirs. These men and women are special. They are, as described over thousands of years, warriors. In some societies they are thought to be chosen by God. In tribal groups, like the Cherokee, they are honored in life and death.
Would you stand in the boots of these warriors? Where dawn can be just a brighter nightmare? Where the night in the desert was so silent and dead that you could not ignore the bite of the sand fleas? Laying in the jungle in a mixing bowl of noise, not knowing which was animal and which was the enemy that would take your life or which snake would find a home in your sleeping bag.
Could you stand in the boots of a marine, alone, in a bombed-out building with the enemy nearby and defenseless against the rats crawling over him? Morning comes, but the memory stays. Only to reappear years later in a nightmare. These are humans not machines. And maybe, just maybe, a little more human than others.
Every one of these men and women counts as a hero. We as Americans need to recognize, no matter which branch of the service or what their assigned task, each and every one of our warriors deserves as much honor and respect as you can give. If you hesitate to give a couple of hours to honor our military, hold your child and think of the mother who held her child before he or she went to defend you. When you see a veteran, whose face is scared, don’t turn from him or her. That could have been your child.
When you see a veteran in a wheelchair with no legs, don’t look down at that veteran. Bow slightly and touch him or her lightly and thank him because: “THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I” (quote by John Bradford, London, 1553).
Come to the parade and thank our veterans for their service, because for some, it may be your last chance! Bring your children and show them how we honor our young, old, and disabled veterans. Know this, Tennessee is one of the last bastions of freedom, because of our veterans.
Larry Verch – 2022