Local veterans vigil and parade may now be tentative owing to coronavirus lingering

TEXARKANA, Ark — With coronavirus still looming, the Texarkana Area Veterans Council is tentatively planning to hold its annual downtown Veterans Day Parade.

This year, with Veterans Day Nov. 11 holiday falling on Wednesday, the parade will likely have to be held Nov.7, which would be the Saturday before the holiday.

The council, which met Thursday, decided that they would have to notify Texarkana, Texas, no later then two weeks to one a month before the parade. Those seeking to participate in the parade have until

Oct. 1 to fill out a parade application and send it to Texarkana, Texas, City Hall.

Besides the parade being place on a tentative state, the Texarkana Area Chapter #278 Vietnam Veterans of America are planning to hold their 33rd Annual POW-MIA Vigil Sept. 18-19 at the Korea-Vietnam Memorial.

This yearly event, which started about the same time the memorial site opened near the West Seventh Street and North State Line Avenue intersection, is conducted to honor and remember those military service members who were, and still are, classified as either Prisoners of War for

Missing in Action.

The ceremony will focus on military service members who returned from overseas as well as those who are still unaccounted for from all wars. Furthermore, the event’s purpose is to also raise awareness of this issue of unaccounted veterans to let the families of these men and women know they aren’t alone in their quest for answers and for closure.

In other business, the Texarkana Area Veterans Clinic will be conducting its second drive-though COVID-19 testing from 8 a.m, to noon.

For more information, call 870-773-8279, 903-556-1613 or at 903-824-2727