The Road to Remembrance

If you’re wondering what to expect at this year’s Memorial Day Parade, you can find small clues by thinking backing to last year. And the year before. And the year before that.

“Every year they get better and better so this one should better,” said Pat Conley who as Post Commander of the American Legion Hall in Huntley, has organized the parade for the past three years. “Last year’s parade was 45 minutes long.”

This year’s event is shaping up to be just as long and memorable with waves of village officials, military veterans, the Marine Corps League, scouts, the Huntley High School band, the Lions Club of Sun City, the Patriot Guards, and a variety of other groups, including Huntley Patch, scheduled to participate. Additionally, Wells Fargo is bringing a stagecoach drawn by six horses.

 “I got to keep (the horses) away from the motorized vehicles,” Conley warned. “They’re skittish.”

Evidence of just how large Huntley’s Memorial Parade has become lies in the parade route itself, which Conley now estimates to be three-quarters of a mile long.

“We used to from ( the James C. Dhamer Town Square) and march over to the Huntley cemetery,” Conley said. “But the parade has gotten so big that it’s easier for us to form up at the (Huntley) municipal building, and use their big parking lot, and come down Main Street, turn, and use the gazebo for the ceremonies.”

Among the guest speakers at the post-parade ceremonies will be grand marshal Alan Belcher of Transitional Living Services, a non-profit organization that operates New Horizons in Hebron and assists homeless veterans who want a chance to rebuild their lives.

“(New Horizons) gets them back on their feet and by the time (the vets) leave there, they get an apartment, pots and pans, linens, a job and (then) you’re on your own bud,” said Conley, 68, who served as a Machinist Mate Second Class for four years in the Navy.  

Also scheduled at Dhamer Town Square is a 21-gun salute, in which Conley will participate, the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance by local students, and, in keeping with tradition, a reading of “In Flanders Field”, a 1915 war memorial poem written by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae.

Conley added that while the names of Huntley residents who have died in battle have been read aloud in previous Memorial Day ceremonies, such recognition is still being reserved for Remembrance Day (November 11) when many countries throughout the world honor their fallen soldiers. Still, Huntley’s own are sure to be on the minds of many, as the town’s military participation dates back almost 200 years.

“Up in Huntley Cemetery and St. Mary’s, there’s a guy buried there from the War of 1812,” Conley said. “There’s two guys there who fought in Blackhawk Indian wars. There are about 12 who fought in the Civil War including Thaddeus Huntley, the son of the guy who found this town. He was in the 8th Illinois Cavalry.”

Incidentally, it’s the latter that Conley wishes he could have booked for the parade.

“I only had them once,” he said. “But they’re so in-demand. If you go to their web site, they’ve listed where they’re going to be for like the next five years.”

If there’s one thing that can be said about next year’s Memorial Day Parade, it’s that Conley will not be organizing it, as his term as American Legion Post Commander will have ended. So forgive him then if at this year’s parade, he’s paying extra attention to what he says is his favorite part.

“The kids. They’re all carrying American flags and they know it’s for the veterans,” he said.