Faithful but fewer

Veterans Day parade draws smaller crowd, fewer marchers in Hub

Members of the East Boston Army JROTC Clipper Battalion marched along Tremont Street yesterday in a Veterans Day parade in Boston. (Globe Staff Photo / David L. Ryan)

The holiday used to be called Armistice Day, and its countless parades paid a star-spangled tribute on Nov. 11 to the recent veterans of World War I, the "war to end all wars."

Decades ago, spectators would crowd 20 deep on Tremont Street in downtown Boston, underneath the foolhardy who leaned far out of office windows, and below a shower of confetti that fell on precisely placed columns of combat-hardened veterans.

Since 1954, the celebration has been known as Veterans Day. And yesterday, as four mounted Boston police officers led a short parade past the reviewing stand on Boston Common, only a few hundred hardy souls braved the wind and the chill to pay tribute to the veterans of wars present and past.

"The numbers have been down the past two to three years, and I don't know why," said Margaret St. Cyr, 81, a proud auxiliary member of American Legion Post 327 in Mission Hill. "A lot of your World War II vets, who were very strong in these parades, have passed away."

Standing beside her, passing out flags to tourists and passers-by, Eleanor McHugh, president of the American Legion auxiliary at Old Dorchester Post 65, cited another possible culprit.

"I think the young people aren't interested," said McHugh, who has been attending parades on Veterans and Armistice Day for 60 years. "The young veterans will pay their dues, but they won't come to meetings."

As the parade moved north on Tremont Street to City Hall Plaza, the number of spectators, a mix of the patriotic and the merely curious, grew steadily as George M. Cohan songs and military anthems echoed off the buildings.

Sylvester Egidio of East Boston, a Vietnam-era veteran of the 101st Airborne Division, snapped a black glove to eye level as each American flag passed from right to left. A night police sergeant at Fisher College in the Back Bay, Egidio, 61, is scrupulous about adhering to the letter of flag and military etiquette.

"A lot of kids don't even know the meaning of all this," said Egidio, who is the third of four generations to have served in the military, from World War I to recent times. "I try to come every year."

Andrew Fay of West Roxbury, a 45-year-old Boston police officer, brought two of his four children to the parade, one clutching each protective hand. Fay dressed for the occasion, wearing the camouflage and sergeant first class insignia of the Army National Guard.

"I'm just honoring the uniform and showing the kids" a slice of Americana, said Fay, a veteran of the Iraq war, Bosnia, and the Gulf War.

The uniform seemed to be everywhere in the years between the world wars, when most American Legion posts supported their own bands and every neighborhood that held a chapter could expect a small Armistice Day parade of its very own.

Although the decades since the Vietnam War have seen a drastic decline in the festivities, sputtering interest can flicker to life at any time.

In Rockland yesterday, a revolving, tritown effort with Abington and Whitman attracted more than 2,000 spectators, said Joseph Colantoni, the veterans agent in Abington.

"I thought it was excellent," Colantoni said. "We've had Veterans Days when there was nobody, you know? I think the reason there was a lot more is because the war is still on. This was one of the better ones."

The current conflict also attracted about a dozen members of Iraq Veterans Against the War to the Boston parade. There they marched silently behind a banner and acknowledged sporadic but respectful applause.

"This warms my heart," said Patrick Doherty, 24, of Dorchester, who served in Iraq as an Army specialist.

"You want to be around the vets today," he said. "If I were alone, I'd be depressed."

Behind the parade line, another group of antiwar veterans was neither silent nor inconspicuous.

To the rear of a street sweeper, about 100 members and friends of Veterans for Peace carried a sea of banners as they advanced on City Hall Plaza.

"The people are finally waking up" to the human costs of the war, said Pat Scanlon, 61, of Andover, a Vietnam veteran and local coordinator for the national group.

Scanlon said Veterans for Peace had been barred from the parade because American Legion officials, who cosponsored the event with the city, said the group, among other limitations, could carry only one banner and make no speeches from an official podium.

"We look at this as a First Amendment issue," Scanlon said.

Parade officials from the American Legion could not be reached for comment late yesterday.

MacQuarrie can be reached at b_macquarrie@globe.com.