Rain or shine, Auburn salutes vets with longtime Veterans Day parade

AUBURN —

There still is a small-town feel in this city of 55,000, with one of the bigger businesses on East Main Street, Rottles Apparel & Shoes, displaying a banner stating, "Celebrating 70 years!"

On a blustery, rainy, cold Saturday, the locals — maybe a couple thousand of them — held up little U.S. flags handed out by volunteers and lined the street to watch their 44th annual Veterans Day Parade.

They proudly would explain this was one of the largest Veterans Day parades in the West. This year, there were more than 200 entries and more than 25 marching bands.

For some, the event was bittersweet.

While 23 members of the Washington State Chapter of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association made it to the parade, a dozen others had gone to funeral services Saturday in Redmond for Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael P. Montgomery, 36.

The Redmond native was among seven Army Special Operations Command soldiers killed Oct. 26 in a helicopter crash in western Afghanistan.

He also had been in the Army National Guard here, and some of those in the Vietnam group knew him from there.

Montgomery was married and had a young son.

Patrick Staeheli, 65, of Kent, was one of the Vietnam vets at the parade.

"I was 13 when my father was killed in an aviation accident. He was a naval aviator in World War II and Korea." said Staeheli. "I know what it's like losing your father. I so wanted to follow him."

So Staeheli spent 10 years active in the Navy and 21 in the Army National Guard.

The Vietnam vets used a 4-by-4 pickup to tow a UH-1 Iroquois, commonly known as the "Huey," that was on loan to them from the Olympia Flight Museum.

The chopper, which became a Vietnam War icon, was greeted with admiration by onlookers.

Among those on the sidewalk were Estevan Corpuz, 48, a truck driver who grew up in Auburn, and his two children, Ricardo, 5, and Karina, 4.

The youngsters were all bundled up and standing under umbrellas, and said the usual stuff that kids say about parades, which was that they liked it.

Corpuz said he thought he remembered one Veterans Day in his four or so decades of attending in which it snowed. It didn't matter; he still showed up, and now he brings his kids.

"I think they like to see people in uniforms," Corpuz said.

As always, themes in the parade varied wildly.

One minute, there was a couple riding a motorcycle with a U.S. flag made out of Christmas lights on the back.

The next minute, there were two dozen 7- to 10-year-olds juggling diabolos, about as low-tech a prop as you can get. A diabolo consists of two sticks with a string tied between them. The juggler then uses the string to whirl and toss a spool.

The group, Auburn Elites, is run by Michael McKinley, 44, a Pioneer Elementary P.E. teacher. The kids meet twice a week to practice.

He said the juggling helps the kids develop the right side and left side of their brains, "and that helps with reading."

He watched the group of kids, obviously excited as they waited for their turn to join the parade.

"No electricity, no plugging in things," said McKinley.

Auburn is one of four Washington cities on the official Department of Veterans Affairs list to hold regional observances. The others are Port Angeles, Vancouver and West Richland.

Why Auburn as the only city in Puget Sound with a city-sanctioned parade?

"Once you get out of Seattle, you have a larger number of veterans living in those places," said Staeheli. "My sister works in Seattle, and she says she doesn't know anybody there who served in the military."

A search of news reports showed that Seattle did have a veterans parade in downtown Seattle in 2003, with 30 vets marching and hardly anybody watching along the sidewalks. Before that, it's hard to find anything else.

There is a Seattle Veterans Museum, a nonprofit group that rents space in Benaroya Hall.

On Saturday, it had a total of one visitor, said Todd Crooks, one of the co-founders of the museum.

He said it'd be nice to have a veterans parade in Seattle.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com