Royal Oak to honor Memorial Day with parade

ROYAL OAK — The Royal Oak Memorial Day Parade will begin at 9 a.m., May 26, on Main Street at Lincoln Avenue.

Mike Sherman, a member of the Royal Oak Veterans Events Committee, said that this year will continue the decades-long tradition of paying tribute to those who died in service to our country and veterans past and present.

Sherman said the parade will include Boy Scouts, flag bearers, veterans and more.

Directly after the parade will be a ceremony observing Memorial Day with Sherman as the host.

“It’s a tremendous honor. It gives me goosebumps every time I step up there and talk about our veterans and the people behind me (on the memorial), the 189 people that faced the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom,” Sherman said. “It’s unexplainable, especially being a veteran, when you take that oath and you tell them I am ready to give myself up for this country; there’s no other oath like it.”

The parade will have veteran Lawrence Miller, 37, as a special guest this year.

Miller will be participating in the Trek For Vets, a fundraising campaign he created that includes a 200-mile walk May 15-26 starting at The Boulevard Inn and Bistro in St. Joseph and concluding at the Royal Oak Memorial Day parade.

Miller’s goal is to raise $222 per mile, with all donations going toward providing crucial assistance to veterans in crisis, including legal, mental, physical and housing support.

Each day Miller will be traveling 15-20 miles, with checkpoints every 5 miles.

“We (veterans) isolate when we don’t have the answers or can’t figure out solutions. We just bite our lips and try to figure out in our own head and figure out how to complete the task or objective or mission or whatever it is that we are dealing with in our life, and we don’t always have the answers to that,” Miller said.

Miller shared that he has struggled with mental health issues following his deployment, and at first had a hard time admitting that he needed help. Miller hopes to encourage others going  through the same things to ask for help through this walk.

“It’s OK to ask for help. I am just trying to share the story of how I went through a rough spot a couple of years ago, lost my family, just because I couldn’t admit that I needed help sooner with some mental health stuff that I was going through,” he said. “The walk is creating a tribe where you can go to relate, to share your stories with and get mentorship and hopefully get those guys out of isolation to help them get better.”

Following the parade will be a memorial ceremony located at the Royal Oak Veterans Memorial, 200 S. Troy St.

“We are going to honor some of the people at the memorial. We are going to personalize a couple of them, because they are from our community and they need to be talked about,” Sherman said. “They are not just an etching on the stone, you know. So that’s what we are trying  to do.”

During the ceremony and throughout the Memorial Day observance there will be 189 flags planted on the hill at Centennial Commons commemorating the soldiers who are named on the memorial.

Sherman emphasized that the point of this holiday is to truly remember and honor those who have lost their lives.

“I would remind people that every day, everything they do, they go to school, work, is all because of the people that have given and protected this country for the last 250 years,” he said. “Giving an hour or two to say thank you for your service to a veteran is something we should actually all do.”

Miller said that he encourages anybody interested to stop at a checkpoint or join him during his 200-mile trek across Michigan.

“Anyone is allowed to join. … I am trying to have more people unite on the trek, meet at different checkpoints to unite, share conversations, share stories, and I am trying to unite people across the state through this journey,” Miller said.

For more information on the Memorial Day parade, visit romi.gov.