LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Every year, Veteran’s Day parades across the country will welcome people who want to honor those who served, but for many veterans, returning home from battle can create daily challenges.
Lincoln Veterans Parade Group is the nonprofit who organizes Lincoln’s annual veterans’ parade but are also taking care of veterans all year long.
Antonio Marino has been the president of Lincoln Veterans Parade Group since 2018.
“It’s a big grand parade, plenty of candy and American flags that get passed out,” said Marino, a veteran himself.
Before leading this group, he was a heavy equipment mechanic in the Marine Corps, and served in places like California and Japan, but his roots are in Nebraska.
Marino knows firsthand, the challenges of coming back from deployment.
“At first, it’s great, you’re out, you get to do what you want, wake up whenever you want, things like that. But then you start feeling the loneliness,” he said.
Marino has dedicated himself to the Veteran’s Day Parade in Lincoln, growing support for it from volunteers and other organizations too, but at the same time has expanded their mission.
“We want to make sure that they are also integrating with the community members, and that the community knows how veterans and military can transition and help out with what they’re doing,” he said.
Such as the group’s recent ‘Sock and Tops’ event.
“We collected a bunch of socks, shirts, hygiene gear, cash donations for our veteran families,” he said.
The group also launched the Honor Project, a collection of recorded stories from people in the military community.
Those stories combat misconceptions about military veterans.
“The public will see us struggling with certain emotions or situations in the workplace, family life, things like that, and then they just see us as an angry veteran. Or maybe we have PTSD and we’re going to snap,” said Marino.
His response to the critics is this.
“We give our life, literally and figuratively, to the military, to our country, to our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, the strangers that are in our community,” said Marino.
The year’s parade will start at K street and move Westbound towards the Capital Building.
If you would like to volunteer at the parade or at any of the other year-round events hosted by Lincoln Veterans Parade Group, you can visit their website here.
