Parade on 5th Monday 12:30PM – 3:00PM

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Well, time to celebrate with us. This morning is Mark Otto, and he is the official person running the Veterans Day Parade, And well, Mark, tell me everything that’s going on tomorrow at the Veterans Day Parade and your position and all the people that are involved.

0:26 Speaker 2 Morning, John, Thanks for having me on. It’s an honor for the prade to be affiliated as a partnership with WABC Radio. So thanks for having me on. But tomorrow, yes, it’s a big day. Veterans Day is my favorite time of year. So Veterans Day, you have to remember, is different than Memorial Day. Veterans Day is the day where

0:46 we thank veterans for their service to our country and their sacrifice. So tomorrow, as always since nineteen nineteen, the prey will take place on Fifth Avenue, the heart of New York City. It’ll basically go from the Flat Iron Building to just below Rocket Fall Center. So if you’re gonna come out and watch the parade, you should come

1:05 out and watch it from twenty sixth Street to forty fifth Street. And we’re gonna have in the parade as we do every year, We’re gonna have every generation of veterans going all the way back to World War Two.

1:16 We anticipate over twenty thousand marchers. We have about one hundred and thirty unique vehicles that includes antique vehicles and military vehicles. We have over twenty floats. We have better. We have veteran organizations that come in from across the country, along with things like high school bands and other organizations that support parade. We normally get a representation from about

1:39 at least thirty six states from across the US. Our foreign allies come in from across Europe as far as Australia and South Korean to be in the parade. So it takes an entire year to build the parade up to get to this point, and we couldn’t do it without the help and support of our volunteers. The volunteers

1:58 are really the heart of the parade. There’s only three of us that actually work on this phase full time, and we rely on the support of these volunteers who have been coming out five, ten, fifteen, some twenty years.

2:09 They’ve been actually doing this, and the amazing thing is some of them are actually veterans themselves that want to be volunteers so they can support the generations that came before them.

2:19 Speaker 1 Wow, give us, give me your analysis. So many things have been happening in our country that we don’t really understand. What’s happening over the last ten years. Are people more sensitive, Well, we had a change of administrations in last week. Are people were people going the wrong way on our veterans and our armed forces? You tell us.

2:49 Speaker 2 But I like to think that people will always support our veterans no matter what’s going on in the world. Some things that are warming concerning or like last year the Army, their recruiting was down about twenty four percent, So that’s definitely concerned. As a parent, my son’s thirteen years old, so I’m a little concerned about the world

3:07 he’s going to grow up in because people, you know, aren’t joining the military. Eventually they’ll have to be a draft, this is what I’m thinking. So hopefully we’re going to have more of the younger generation that that’s going to be engaged and see what the veterans are doing and with the military as he went across the world, and

3:25 they’ll be motivated to actually join the military. So that’s that’s something that we share in common with wv ABC Radio about yourself.

3:34 Speaker 1 What is your history in the military.

3:37 Speaker 2 My history, So, I was I served in the Marine Corps from nineteen eight to nineteen ninety two. During that time frame, I served under A. Schwartzkoff and Powell we’re in command, and Bush Senior was actually in command as well.

3:50 Those same four years, I was deployed to the Panama invasion when I just turned nineteen. When I just turned twenty, I was in Desert Storm and I spent about by last year working undercover with federal agians down on the US southern border.

4:04 Speaker 1 Wow. Wow, So you you’re a dedicated American? Uh. And I was worried what’s happening in the last ten years because we sort of went the wrong way for a while. But right now, under President Trump and his dedication to the military, I think we’re gonna get back on track.

4:24 Speaker 2 What do you think, Well, that’s been here. Yes, Remember it’s been over twenty years that the America has been involved in the longest war it’s ever been in. So I think that the public has a little bit of fatigue about hearing about this and and really there was no closure as far as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

4:43 The global War on Terror, which is sort of the overarching name of this campaign, continues to go on because we’re still fighting terrorists around the world. So the people are out there and what we refer to as low intensity conflicts if anything, because of it’s small skirmmaces or friction points that are going on around the world. So yeah,

5:05 I think that, uh, you know, the military is evolving, you know, particularly being a marine I see massive changes going on on the Marine Corps that are adapt adapting to the current environment. You know, when I was in Desert Storm, for the largest tank battles that ever took place for the Marine Corps were during Desert Storm. And

5:23 now the Marine Corps has no tanks, so they gave the army. So they’re restructuring the Marine Corps to have more specialized units that are going to salt and pepper the South China Sea and and ensure that all of our trade reps remain open, so more you know, specialized individuals out there doing surgical missions. So so that sort

5:42 of gives you an idea of how the military is actually evolving to what’s going on. As far as as the President Trump is concerned, I can tell you one thing we asked the president to attend the parade every year, and Trump was the first one to say yes. We came to the twenty nineteenth parade, which happened to be

6:02 the centennial parade, and since I’ve been involved with the parade. In twenty sixteen, it was definitely the biggest pray that we’ve had. The turnout was about thirty thousand marchers, and we had reporters coming in from all over the place.

6:14 When we had our opening ceremony, we had about four or five hundred leaders in Madison Square Park out in front of the Flat Iron Building for a reflang, and we probably had around one hundred and fifty reporters there.

6:25 Speaker 1 We listic and did you know all our WABC listeners you have millions of people listening and that well, WABC is co sponsoring the parade and we’ll be on live all day long tomorrow and in many many respects, and I look forward to being there with you and celebrating Veterans’ Day and saluting all the people that helped us

6:52 help America.

6:54 Speaker 2 Thanks for having me on, John, and I appreciate it. You know, this partnership with WBC Radio in the parade is really meaningful to us. You all are very patriotic folks, so you fit right in with our messaging. And I want to thank all the listeners for for tuning in and thinking about our veterans on Veterans Day.

7:10 Speaker 1 And I want to thank Bruce Mosler for for contributing to this too. And he’s a dedicated uh he loves America and he also does the Intrepid And and how do we we we both attended at dinner last week where where there’s a lot of objections to uh, the Vietnam veterans were never you know, appreciated. Is there any

7:39 progress on that?

7:42 Speaker 2 Yeah, So we work we work very closely with locally v v A one twenty six as a chaplain. And I know they’re big listeners on your on your show, so shout out to them as well. However, most people don’t realize that, you know, in the mid eighties, the parade itself was struggling because of us, you know, support

7:58 for our veterans were the Lankae, particularly after Vietnam. So one of the things that we actually have done since I’ve taken charge is we retrace the Vietnam Veterans Day Welcome Home Parade route with Vietnam Veterans every year since I’ve been in charge in twenty seventeen. And then the cool thing about it is the march is led by

8:20 Vietnam Veterans and we get the community to come out and show their support and we carry you know, sometimes up to one hundred American flags, and we cross the Brooklyn Bridge, go down the Canyon Heroes, and we end it at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. So I think it’s really touching for them to actually see the community come

8:37 out and activate. So Vietnam Veterans Day is late in March, but we do that March every year. Of course we’d love that you guys get involved in that as well. But yeah, so it’s true the Vietnam Veterans way that they were well, you know, not welcome home is really shameful.

8:52 And I think that we’re every year we’re trying to do things to highlight them, and they make sure that you know, thank you for their service mean something, but welcome home, I think means more to them.

9:04 Speaker 1 Mark WABC is always going to stand by the veterans, and I hope we can work together for many many years to come and salute our veterans and to salute the United States of America. Thank you so much for coming on and I’ll see you tomorrow.

9:17 Speaker 2 Veterans Day sounds great, John, thank you, Thank you everybody for listening. Thank you.