Older Vets March, but not New Vets

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 10, 2008 at 6:24 PM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The 22nd annual Veterans' Day Parade kicks off this morning at 11am, and marches south on Pacific Highway to Harbor Drive. Organizers say they expect four thousand vets from past wars to participate,

The 22 ^nd annual Veterans' Day Parade kicks off this morning at 11am, and marches south on Pacific Highway to Harbor Drive.

Organizers say they expect four thousand vets from past wars to participate, but none from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

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The theme of this year's downtown Veterans' Parade is “The Forgotten War - Korea.”

Organizers with "Veterans United for San Diego" say Korean vets will serve as the honorary grand marshals.

But though vets from Iraq and Afghanistan could be marching too, none has signed up

Bill Rider of " American Combat Veterans of War " says they are the ones who should be at the front of the parade.

Rider : The ones we should be honoring are these wounded warriors coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq that have these invisible wounds. That’s who should be riding these cars, because if you don’t honor them now, they’ll have the same problems the Vietnam veterans did.

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Rider says Vietnam Vets got little support and no parades when they returned. He’s working to build support groups for recently returned marines at Camp Pendleton and Twenty Nine Palms.

The organisers of today’s parade say newer vets don’t yet belong to associations like seasoned vets do, and don’t tend to participate in public parades.

Alison St John, KPBS news,

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.