WEST ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO (KTVI-FOX2now.com)—
An annual slap in the face to St. Louis veterans: tiny turnouts at the Veterans Day parade downtown. Now, New Horizons Troop 310 is pushing to get more people than ever to come say thanks. The parade begins at noon Saturday in Downtown and will wind right past the Soldiers' Memorial. New Horizons Troop 310 will be there. Their goal is to be joined by 10,000 scouting families.For 20 years now, Skip Berger has been in St. Louis's Veterans Day Parade, yet he's felt alone. The crowd is tiny. It's embarrassing.
Berger, a Army and Coast Guard Vet, says, "You get a bunch of beat up veterans getting together and nobody seems to care."
The Boy Scouts care.
"It's disappointing you know. There's been more people in the parade than in the crowd. I mean, that's terrible," says Steven Wyatt of Boy Scout Troop 310.
Troop 310 Assistant Scoutmaster Mike O'Neil says, "And I knew that if scouting embraced that, we could change it."
Troop 310 from west St. Louis County is visiting scouting meetings everywhere, issuing a challenge to sixty thousand boy, cub, and girl scouts: come watch and thank a veteran.
O'Neil says, "I'd like to see us line the parade route with girl scouts, brownies, cub scouts, daisies everybody."
"When you get something like you're involved in right now - it's worthwhile absolutely," says Berger.
Charlotter Bahr is the former wife of a Vietnam Veteran. She says, "He would be very honored and I'm sure he's smiling down now. He always tried to get all of us, everyone, to come to any functionÂ….and he would just be cheering."
Troop 310 will be marching in the parade with a Scouting/Military honor guard carrying our theme banner "100 Years of Scouting Salutes Our American Veterans".
