in many city events, graced the route in its traditional garb.
By Michael P. Walsh
Special to the Voice
Colleen St. Clair Weatherspoon, a Navy veteran of the Grenada/Panama era, led the city’s Memorial Day parade as grand marshal, guiding the more than 40-unit procession of veterans, bands and dignitaries, including Mayor Dorinda Borer and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, along Campbell Avenue on May 26.
On a picture-perfect day, with blue skies and temperatures in the upper 60s, the procession stepped from Captain Thomas Boulevard north to Center Street, where hundreds of revelers thronged the 1 ½-mile route, American flags waving, for the annual patriotic march.
Weatherspoon, a 1982 graduate of West Haven High School who served stateside during the U.S. invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, was tapped by the West Haven Veterans Council, which helps the city organize the parade, for her years of service to the military, her fellow vets and her community.
The 90-minute parade commenced with a flyover by a C-130 Hercules, a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft operated by the Connecticut Air National Guard.
The event, in memory of the deceased members of the U.S. armed forces of all wars, is the oldest parade of its kind in southern Connecticut.
The procession featured the Connecticut Army National Guard’s 102nd Army Band, the New Haven County Firefighters Emerald Society Pipes & Drums, the East Rock Brass Band, and the West Haven High School and Bailey Middle School marching bands, as well as bands from the Rock House School of Music.
In addition to the city’s legion of veterans groups, including West Haven Vietnam Veterans and Surfside Veterans, the parade showcased the traditional contingent of youth organizations and sports leagues, dance and Scout troupes, fraternal organizations and service clubs, local and state leaders, police officers and firefighters.
It also included members of the West Haven High cheerleading and dance teams, cheerleaders from the West Haven Seahawks, and members of the Mulkerin School of Irish Dance.
After the parade, a wreath-laying ceremony was held at the World War I Armistice Memorial on the Green. The wreath was laid by West Haven Vietnam Veterans Vice President Al Beck Sr. and member William “Bill” Benson, the parade’s 2019 grand marshal.
Borer delivered remarks praising America’s war veterans who made the supreme sacrifice. Weatherspoon also spoke.