Parade Again Part of D.C. Remembrance

170 Groups Participate in Revived Celebration

The World War II veteran sat on a stone wall near the National Museum of the American Indian, wearing a zany Hawaiian shirt and watching the District's first Memorial Day parade in decades.

In his left leg was a thumbnail-size bit of German shrapnel. In his right was a dimple, visible yesterday through his khakis, where a shard of an 88mm shell passed clean through.

But at least Howard LeFlore, a retired accountant from Tulsa, is alive, unlike so many other soldiers whose sacrifices, from the French and Indian War to Iraq, were honored yesterday.

"Those that didn't make it -- I think of them first," said LeFlore, 81.

"He promised the Lord that if he lived, he would not complain," his wife, Mable, interjected. "We have been married 51 years, and I have never heard him complain. And I know it hurts."

Organized chronologically, from the long-ago bloodshed between European settlers and Native Americans, to veterans of the current conflict in Iraq, the two-hour event became a kind of living timeline. Spectators, sometimes sparse and sometimes three deep along the route, applauded, snapped pictures or snapped salutes as aging veterans rolled past in antique cars.

Many along the route waved some of the 8,000 tiny U.S. flags given out by organizers. Donors were invited to write notes attached to the flags, and their messages were poignant:

"Survived sinking of ship in convoy by German aerial torpedoes," wrote Ted N. Andrews of Fresno, Calif. "God Bless America."

Another came from Norma Childs of Middletown, R.I. "I lost a brother in World War II," she wrote. "God bless."

Interspersed among groups symbolizing the nation's armed conflicts came bagpipers, marching bands, Girl Scout troops, Army Jeeps, a fleet of convertibles and a living sculpture reenacting the iconic moment of the Marines' flag-raising over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during World War II.

The parade began about 9 a.m. at Third Street NW and Independence Avenue as Mayor Anthony A. Williams, the grand marshal, rolled by in a two-tone Rolls-Royce convertible, a blindingly red Nationals baseball cap on his head.

An Abe Lincoln look-alike -- his beard a little thinner than his presidential namesake -- strolled by in dour suit and stovepipe hat not far from a contingent of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.