When U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein kicks off the 88th annual Great Neck Memorial Day Parade on Monday, the longtime Great Neck resident said he will have two main jobs to carry out as grand marshal.
“Getting there on time and sitting up straight,” Weinstein said with a laugh.
The Great Neck Memorial Day Parade is scheduled to begin on Monday at 9:30 a.m. The parade route will run along Middle Neck Road, beginning south of the Long Island Rail Road Station at Susquehanna Avenue, before ending at the Village Green where a remembrance service will be held at approximately 10:15 a.m.
“It’s a good day for everyone,” Great Neck Memorial Day Parade Committee Chairman Jim Barton said. “You pay your respects in the morning and you thanks these veterans for giving us our freedom, then you go out and enjoy those freedoms.”
Although Weinstein was able to joke about his role in Great Neck’s Memorial Day Parade, he said the motivation behind holding the annual celebration is no laughing matter.
“We have to be all so, kind of humbled, by people who gave their lives or their health,” said Weinstein who is a Navy veteran with service in World War II. “I’m pleased and honored that I was honored (as grand marshal).”
Weinstein said this will be the second time he is serving as grand marshal of Great Neck’s Memorial Day Parade, which he has been attending for the past 55 years.
“We owe them so much, all those thousands that died,” Weinstein said. “They made it possible for this democracy to live.”
More than 1,000 marchers are expected to take part in this year’s Memorial Day parade, which includes 30 organizations from across New York and Canada, Barton said.
“It’s always been done with respect and honor,” he said. “We’ve always had a wonderful turnout.”
Barton said the Great Neck Vigilant and Alert fire departments are scheduled to take part in the parade along with members of the Great Neck American Legions Post No. 160 and the Great Neck Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 372.
Midshipmen from the United States Merchant Marine Academy in the Village of Kings Point are also slated to march in the parade with representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, Barton said.
For the second straight year, Canadian veterans from the Royal Canadian Legion Branch No. 50 will also take part in the Great Neck Memorial Day Parade along with members of the Canadian-based Kitchner/Waterloo Fire Fighters Association and Honor Guard, Barton said.
“This is our 88th parade and its important for the community to stop and pause and pay honor to our fallen heroes,” said Barton, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam.
The Great Neck South High School marching band is also slated to march in the parade with an expected 150 to 200 students from the Great Neck Combined Elementary School Band, Barton said.
Great Neck’s boy and girl scout troops will also participate in the parade, Barton said.
“We do this and its rain or shine,” he said. “It’s important to pass it along to the kids, future generations to remind them.”
The remembrance service at the Village Green will begin with an opening speech by Barton, along with memorial prayers and an address by Weinstein.
“It’s a memorial service,” Barton said. “There are other parades that have Ronald McDonald and the North Shore Animal League in it. I just feel that’s not right. We keep it to organizations that know what to do and know how to behave.”
The Great Neck Park District
will also unveil its new veterans memorial at the Village Green on Monday during the Remembrance Service.
“We created a whole new area,” Great Neck Park District Commissioner Robert Lincoln Jr. said. “It’s an area where people can, first of all, walk in at ground level … and it’s a whole level for contemplation. We want to try and make it more interactive.”
Lincoln said the new veterans memorial will serve as an appropriate place to honor Great Neck’s veterans.
“It’s not just a bunch of names … on the wall,” he said. “It brings out what these people did.”
For Weinstein, the opportunity to speak during the remembrance service will be very special.
“It is a great honor because it’s a day that we ought to remember,” Weinstein said. “I knew people that were killed in World War II.”
Weinstein currently serves as a justice in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. He was nominated to that judgeship on Jan. 16, 1967 by then President Lyndon B. Johnson.
After being confirmed by the United States Senate in April of 1967, Weinstein has served as a justice in the United States District Court in a variety of capacities. He was chief judge from 1980 until 1988 and achieved senior status on March 1, 1993.
Weinstein is a graduate of Brooklyn College and Columbia University Law School. He is a professor of law and has lectured at Columbia and Brooklyn Law School.
In World War II, Weinstein saw action in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters as a qualified submariner from 1942 until 1948.
To participate in Great Neck’s Memorial Day Parade once again is certainly an honor, Weinstein said.
“These are people who gave their lives and it’s not only people who died, but came back crippled and damaged in their minds,” Weinstein said. “(President Abraham) Lincoln said we have to remember the veterans and their wives and their widows.”
