St. Louis Welcomes Veteran Soldiers Home
St. Louis streets were lined with people celebrating the return of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Grassroots organizers and The Mission Continues collaborated on a parade welcoming home troops from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Swarms of people came out to downtown St. Louis to watch the parade. Parade participants saw signs thanking them for their service and welcoming them home.
As Patch has reported, organizers from around metro St. Louis worked to raise funds and awareness.
If you could speak to one of the servicemen or servicewomen returning to the United States, what would you say? Patch readers have been telling us all week.
James Baer
8:10 pm on Saturday, January 28, 2012
Bravo to Rob McClean for such outstanding cover of this historic and first time event. A job well done indeed.
Ellie Grossman
7:20 am on Sunday, January 29, 2012
THis is a great story, a positive news piece thats inspires us all to support the soldiers and continue to work together for the good of our communities.
Terri Violet
7:53 am on Sunday, January 29, 2012
St. Peters Veterans Memorial Commission members, Mayor Pagano, Aldermen Reitmeyer and Aytes proudly represented the City of St. Peters honoring our returning servicemen and women.
From the trolley (seen in this video), our St. Peter’s delegation heard thousands yelling "Thank you for your service." To those returning home, THANK YOU!
Mark Schmiedeskamp
8:56 am on Sunday, January 29, 2012
The number of people that turned out for the parade was awesome. It was great to see the community come together to show our support for our Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, thank them for their service and most importantly welcome them home. The organizers took on a huge undertaking putting this together in such a short amout of time. But what a great success it turned out to be!
Mayor Len Pagano
4:15 pm on Sunday, January 29, 2012
Our beautiful city of St Peters was in the only trolley and was number 21 in the parade. I am so proud of our Veterans Memorial Commission members for coming to the "WELCOME HOME returning servcemen and women event. This event was the first in the nation, all AMERICANS standing up and thanking the brave men and women for their service. What was so special , somehow all wars was brought with a THANK YOU.. I have seen so many children, to the mature age standing and saying, THANK YOU and we LOVE YOU.
Bill Moritz
5:13 pm on Sunday, January 29, 2012
I was down there in front of the Bank of America building. It was very well attended by people paying respects. It was windy and quite cold and the parade was a very impressive display. The parade took an hour and twenty minutes to pass by. It was a very nice presentation for the returning veterans and passing of memorials for fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen. I would not have missed it. I saw one memorial for a young female airman. I wish I knew her story. The Patriot Guard was well represented. Many fire trucks were on hand. I saw an ambulance from the North Jeffereson County district. I even saw two fire trucks from Boeing there. The lady I was standing next to told me that when her husband returned from Viet Nam the reception was quite different. She was very impressed with the reception for the returned soldiers. Thank you to all who served.