Peace group not in march

Veterans Day parade organizer wants event free of 'politics.'

RALEIGH -- The local chapter of the anti-war group Veterans for Peace will not be allowed to march in the N.C. Veterans Day Parade in downtown Raleigh today.

Bill Dixon, a real estate agent who oversees the parade for the Wake County Council of Veterans Organizations Inc., said he denied a request by the group to march in the parade while carrying a Veterans for Peace flag.

"That's a political statement," he said of the flag, which bears the name of the group and its logo, a helmet superimposed with a dove.

"This is not the venue for political statements," Dixon said. "This is a parade honoring current, past and future veterans. The parade is not about glorifying war, or about opposing war. It has nothing to do with war. It's about honoring the veterans."

Wally Myers of N.C. Triangle Veterans for Peace said he's not happy that his group was barred from participating in the parade, which begins at 9:15 a.m. and will be followed by a formal ceremony at 11 a.m. at the State Capitol.

"I don't think that you honor veterans by not allowing them to express their opinions," said Myers, an elementary school teacher who served in Vietnam and said his group includes about 25 veterans from that and other wars. "I guess what I really object to is that exclusionist mentality -- cutting people out."

Myers said that in turning down Veterans for Peace, Dixon was objecting to the group's very name, as well as its ideology.

"The flag makes a moral statement, and, like any other moral statement, it's political," he said. "I don't see what's wrong with it being both of those things."

Myers said it also bothered him that the parade is organized by a private group, the Council of Veterans Organizations Inc., making it essentially unaccountable to the public.

Dixon said members of Veterans for Peace have been disruptive in the past. Myers said Dixon was referring to an incident during the Salute to the Troops parade in downtown Raleigh last spring. Myers said his group asked to participate in that parade but got no response. So its members lined up a half-block ahead of the procession and began marching. When police asked them to leave, he said, they did.

Myers said the group would still attend the parade and hand out leaflets.

Meanwhile, Dixon said, dozens of other groups will be marching in the 27th annual parade, including VFW chapters, Boy Scout troops, Gold Star and Blue Star mothers groups, American Legion posts, Elks clubs and a military vehicle preservation club. Some World War II veterans will be riding in classic cars.