The Tarrant County Veterans Day Parade Nov. 11 will have a special theme this year in honor of TCU’s 150th: Saluting TCU Warriors. The grand marshal is Army Col. (Ret.) Joseph Campbell, who was active in TCU Army ROTC and is a member of TCU’s Military Science Hall of Honor.
“TCU has supported the military community since it was established and currently has close to 300 student veterans attending,” said April Brown, director of Veterans Affairs at TCU. “I am appreciative that the Tarrant County Veterans Day parade is recognizing the service and sacrifice that military members have given to our country.”
The parade will pay particular tribute to the legacy of Maj. Horace S. Carswell, a TCU alumnus and Medal of Honor recipient.
“TCU students and alumni have served in every war of the 20th and 21st centuries, and many others have volunteered for civilian and humanitarian agencies during those wars,” said Kara Dixon Vuic, LCpl. Benjamin W. Schmidt Professor of War, Conflict, and Society in Twentieth-Century America. “Several TCU students, like Carswell, won great recognition. Others, like two TCU alumni buried at the Normandy American Cemetery, never returned home. Many others returned home to finish their studies and go on with life.”
Vuic shared a particular Horned Frog veteran story.
“One TCU veteran of World War I, Edwin A. Elliott, came home to finish his coursework, was elected president of the class of 1923 and led the effort to build what became Veterans Plaza,” she said. “The memorial began as a way to honor three men who died in France and has since expanded to include the names of TCU students and alumni who died in World War II, the Vietnam War and the wars that followed.”
The 2023 Tarrant County Veterans Day Parade is set to step off at 11 a.m. from the Fort Worth Panther Island Pavilion parking lot. It will march down North Forest Park Boulevard along the Clear Fork of the Trinity River and return. Read more about this year’s parade.
Fort Worth’s annual Veterans Day celebration began more than 100 years ago as an armistice procession through downtown in 1919 to honor those who had fought in World War I. In 1945, World War II veteran Raymond Weeks from Birmingham, Ala., sought to expand Armistice Day to salute all veterans. Weeks led a delegation to then Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who supported the idea of a national Veterans Day. Weeks led the first celebration in 1947 and annually until his death in 1985.
This Veteran’s Day, read more from TCU News on Maj. Horace Carswell and the history of women in TCU ROTC.