Columbia Veterans Day Parade returning after 2020 COVID cancellation
After a cancellation a year ago because of the global pandemic, a Columbia tradition of more than four decades is set to return to downtown this week.
The city of Columbia’s 43rd Veterans Day Parade will be at 11 a.m. Thursday. The grand marshals of this year’s event will be representatives from the South Carolina National Guard.
The parade will begin at the intersection of Sumter and Laurel streets and proceed south on Sumter Street. It will end at Pendleton Street near the South Carolina State House.
The Columbia Veterans Day Parade has long been known as one of the largest such parades in the Southeast, a perhaps unsurprising fact considering the city is home to Fort Jackson, the nation’s largest U.S. Army training installation. The typically patriotic celebration was put on hold in November 2020 amid the doldrums of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Veterans Day originated as ‘Armistice Day’ on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I,” notes history.com.
“Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a national holiday beginning in 1938. Unlike Memorial Day, Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans — living or dead — but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.”
