Crowds line streets for annual Kannapolis Memorial Day parade

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. - For so many across our area, Memorial Day marks a special opportunity to pause and reflect. It offers a chance to show appreciation for the sacrifices made by our nation’s heroes.

In Kannapolis, veterans of the United States military walked in an annual parade, group by group. People from the crowd shouted, “We're proud, proud, proud!... Amen! Thank you!"

Many of them are Vietnam veterans and are getting recognition they did not get when they first returned home from the war decades ago.

"You take time to do it and respect all the veterans," Brenda Brown told Channel 9. Her husband is a Vietnam veteran. She said she's proud to see how many people came out to honor her husband and other veterans; as well as to remember the service members who didn't make it home.

“When you find out what all these veterans have done ... the ones that came back and the ones that sacrificed their life for us, it's in your heart," Brown said.

The crowd did not disappoint. People of all ages lined the streets with American flags in hand for the American Legion's annual Memorial Day Ceremony at Veterans Park in Kannapolis.

U.S. Representative Richard Hudson spoke to the crowd full of veterans and said, "I'm just humbled to be in your presence."

Just two weeks ago, he introduced a bill in Congress called the Care Veterans Deserve Act of 2016. If passed, it will allow veterans to see a private doctor without pre-approval; as an alternative to embattled VA hospitals across the nation.

"We must never take for granted their sacrifice. We must work hard to give these heroes the care they deserve; the respect they deserve," Hudson said.

The ceremony's keynote speaker, Retired Air Force Col. Quincy Collins from Concord, has an impressive resume. In 1965, he was shot down in Vietnam and spent seven years in a Vietnamese prison. He spoke about finally returning home from Vietnam with fewer men than he deployed with and what Memorial Day means to him now.

"This is the time when God reminds us that they have not died in vain," Collins said.