Veterans day in Madras, Oregon 2015

We are a small rural town in Central Oregon but we love our veterans.  This veterans day dawned cold, wet and dreary but many braved the conditions to support veterans.

We have a memorial at our airport for our veterans. The airport was built during world war II. We also have an air museum with world war II planes in it.  We have a memorial down town for one of our veterans that lost his life in Afghanistan.

 The air museum has a huge, and I mean HUGE flag out front that can be seen from Highway 26 which comes from Portland.

Right across the road from the museum in the field between the museum and highway 26 was full of geese flying south who stopped to eat. This is just a small section of them. Winter is on the way in Central Oregon.

Our local ROTC group who came for the parade, the line up was at 1pm and the parade started at 2 so they braved the weather for an hour waiting to march to thank our veterans.

Another group of kids that braved the weather and marched in the parade our local high school and middle school band.

We even had a military Jeep in the parade.

The Native American group. They also had a parade in Warm Springs earlier for the Native vets but they still sent entries into Madras to participate on this parade too.

 Our Jefferson County Commissioner Mae Hueston also came out to support the vets in an old pickup.

Two of our local vets, Jon Granby and Joe Russo.

Several of our vets braved the yucky weather to ride their motorcycles down to ride in the parade. Vets are tough people for sure.

Even some locals saddled up their horses and braved the weather.

The Army hitched up a team of horses and jumped in the wagon to go to the parade.

The Jefferson County Fire District #1 also brought their airport rescue truck to the parade along with several engines to support the vets.

The Black Bear Dinner gave veterans a free meal to honor them.  The Elks club gave the veterans a free supper.  Many others gave them discounts etc. to support them.  We might be a small town but I say once again "Madras, the small rural town with the big heart"

God bless our veterans.