Chicago Threw Vietnam Vets a Parade, 11 Years Late

When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, American soldiers came home to no parade. There was no ticker tape, no marching bands, no crowds lined up to say thank you. For many veterans, there was only silence, and sometimes open hostility. It took eleven years for one American city to fix that.

No Homecoming to Speak Of

World War II veterans had come home to ports full of cheering crowds. Vietnam veterans, for the most part, did not.

The war had dragged on for years and divided the country. By the time it ended, there was little appetite left for celebration, and many returning soldiers quietly slipped back into civilian life without any public recognition at all.

A Group of Veterans Decide It Is Not Too Late

By the mid-1980s, a group of Chicago-area Vietnam veterans had had enough of waiting.

They began organizing a welcome home parade themselves. The effort was chaired by Tom Stack, a much-decorated former platoon sergeant and Vietnam veteran.

Their message was simple: it is never too late to say welcome home.

200,000 March, Half a Million Cheer

On the morning of Friday, June 13, 1986, the parade stepped off from Navy Pier and headed west into downtown Chicago.

So many veterans had shown up to march that organizers moved the start time up by half an hour just to fit everyone in.

Nearly 200,000 Vietnam veterans marched that day. More than half a million people lined the streets to watch and cheer them on.

Gen. William Westmoreland, who had commanded American forces in Vietnam, served as grand marshal.

The Honorary Marshal Who Saved a Child Days Earlier

One of the men riding alongside Westmoreland was Jim Patridge, a paraplegic Vietnam veteran who used a wheelchair.

Just a week before the parade, Patridge had been at a swimming pool in west suburban Pleasant Hill when a one-year-old child fell in and began to drown.

He dropped from his wheelchair and dragged himself through 60 feet of underbrush to reach the pool in time to save the child.

Parade organizers made him honorary parade marshal on the spot.

Another veteran, Bob Wieland, who had lost both legs in Vietnam, flew in specifically to join the march.

Eleven Years, Answered

Newspapers at the time described it simply as an emotional day. Crowds that had once stayed silent were finally cheering.

For veterans who had waited more than a decade to hear the words, it was, at last, a welcome home.