PARADE ACCEPTING ENTRIES
Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7696 will host the annual Memorial Day Parade in West Chester Twp. at 10 a.m. May 30.
Scout troops and others interested in participating in the parade can register by clicking here
The grand marshal of the West Chester Twp. VFW Memorial Day parade is a familiar face in veterans circles — former veterans board commissioner Bob Perry.
Perry, a retired Marine, served 10 years on the Veterans Service Commission, until he was replaced by Dave Smith, a fellow member of VFW Post 7696 earlier this year.
In typical Perry style, when asked how he felt about being named grand marshal, he said he was “embarrassed” because he doesn’t like to be in the limelight.
But he will serve.
“I am humbled by it and I am very thankful they wanted me to do it,” he said.
Since he has been off the veterans board, he has mainly been taking care of his wife, who suffers from dementia. He said his wife doesn’t do well in crowds so he is saddened he can’t share the honor with her.
Mickey Vidourek, who organizes the annual parade — it will step off at 10 a.m. May 30 — called Perry a “pillar of the community.”
“He is a member of our post and he does a lot of good work for us,” Vidourek said. “We just wanted to honor him because he is a Korea and Vietnam veteran and we always to try pick somebody each year who has done a lot for our post.”
Perry grew up in Indianapolis and had embarked on a pre-med course at Butler University when the Korean War broke out. He said his sense of patriotism “fired up” and he left college after a year and a half and joined the Navy. He won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, and ultimately ended up an officer in the U.S. Marines flying helicopters.
RELATED: Bob Perry opens up about struggles with PTSD
His first tour of duty was a “black operation” between the Philippines and Vietnam, before the war officially broke out in 1956. Next, he spent 15 months on the ground in Vietnam and returned in 1970 or ‘71 when the war was winding down. A fourth mission sent him on a cruise through the Mediterranean for seven months. In total, he was “out of country” four times over three and a half years.
It took Perry four years worth of night school to earn his law degree from the Detroit College of Law, and he practiced law for 23 years after that. He didn’t know he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, but he retired after he was representing a client in a particularly nasty divorce and on the seventh and last day of trial, he forgot the man had taken the stand that morning.
Caroline Bier, executive director of the veterans board said the post couldn’t have chosen a better grand marshal.
“I don’t think there could be anyone better to be in the position he was chosen for,” she said. “He had a great career in the Marine Corps, he has done a lot for vets since he retired. He just cares about vets and he’s just a good person.”
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