VETERANS FOR PEACE
Greater Atlanta Chapter 125
Atlanta IVAW
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Including
ATLANTA VETERANS DAY PARADE
Photo by Debbie Clark.
VETERANS FOR PEACE CHAPTER 125 PARTICIPATES IN THE ATLANTA VETERANS DAY PARADE -- FIRST TIME!!!
Getting ready!! Assembling for the parade on West Peachtree Street. Former Navy combat pilot and Purple Heart recipient Howard Wolf puts up the Lt. Ehren Watada banner, on loan to the chapter by Ehren Watada's mother, on the side of the Atlanta VFP float. Reid Jenkins, Vietnam War era Coast Guard veteran, assists.
[Above four photos of VFP Chp. 125 members getting ready for the parade were taken by Debbie Clark, then her camera -- never the same since the Veterans & Survivors March to New Orleans -- malfunctioned again and she was not able to obtain any more photos...]
Remaining photos (below) taken by Howard Wolf.
VFP Chp. 125 members Ingemar Smith, Debbie Clark, Reid Jenkins, and Joe Mondello on the sidewalk; standing inside the trailer, former US Navy lieutenant (O-3), Daniel Ritchie.
Inside the trailer: former 101st Airborne Ranger Recondo Tommy Unger, Spanish Civil War & WW II vet and VFP Chp 125 president, George Sossenko. Tommy's wife, seated.
There's the other side of Tommy. Debbie still trying to get her camera to work...
Joe Mondello and Debbie Clark
George Sossenko and Tommy Unger in the front; Ingemar Smith and Daniel Ritchie talking in the rear.
The parade line-up in Division 5, which both VFP and AVER (American Veterans For Equal Rights) were placed, was out of order, though it all worked out nicely. Originally, VFP was slotted by the parade association to be between two high school JROTC units. As it turned out, AVER, led by dual VFP / AVER member Danny Ingram - decked out in BDU pants, a combat helmet, and carrying a dummy M-16 rifle - marched to the head of VFP with a color guard. Following VFP was Vietnam Veterans of America.
Also participating in the parade with the VFP contingent, but not shown in the photos above, were VFP members Peter Morgan, John Zientowski, and Jim Lawler, who all arrived after the above photographs were taken.
As VFP passed by the reviewing stand, the only words the announcer spoke were, "Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service."
Unfortunately, no photographs were taken of VFP Chp. 125 during the parade itself.
"The most recent polls indicate that the number of Iraqis who want us out of there is approaching 70 percent. It may be ironic that the number of Americans who want us out of there, too, is nearing the same percentage. They want us to leave. We want us to leave. There's nothing standing in the way of satisfying both majorities except a president, a vice president and a defense secretary who are willing to fight to the last man - willing to drive our military to utter destruction - before they'll admit that they were wrong, wrong, wrong from deluded beginning to wretched end."
-- from a recent article by Joe Galloway, Maliki Fiddles as Iraq Burns
