Photo credit: WWJ

DEARBORN – The city’s annual
Memorial Day parade is the oldest continuous parade in Michigan, with the
92nd annual march having commenced this year.

For the majority of that time, the route ended at what is now
the former City Hall at Michigan and Schaefer, but this year, that was starting
point.

The procession headed westward with the Henry Ford Centennial
Library as its terminus. The library will soon become home to a veterans
memorial plaza, replacing an iconic fountain that had been there for decades.

In recent years, a growing number of Arab American residents
have participated in the parade.

City Council President Susan Dabaja attended the event with her
children for a third year in a row.

Dabaja told The AANews that her three children have been looking
forward to the event. 

“It gives them a sense of patriotism, respect and loyalty to
those who served and died in order to give us the freedom that we have today,”
Dabaja said.

Keynote remarks were given by the
parade’s grand marshal, Stephen Cochran, a former Marine and well-known country
music entertainer who works to prevent veteran suicides.

Cochran was severely injured on a
combat patrol in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

His long road to recovery
resulted in depression, and through his own experience, he learned how suicidal
thoughts can affect veterans and their families.

Cochran told Dearborn residents
that he was startled by the diverse population that turned out to the parade,
nothing that he was only used to seeing Muslims when he was in Afghanistan.

He said he was proud to see
Muslim women in hijab hold the American flag with pride.

Cochran
told reporters that suicide among veterans was his most concerning issue,
noting that he had contemplated it after breaking his back and suffering a
traumatic head injury in combat.

“We’ve
got a mission, we’ve got brothers and sisters who are dying every day at their
own hands,” Cochran said. “We are losing upwards of 40 to 50 veterans a day to
suicide and this is something that we can stop.”