National Memorial Day Parade Presented by Boeing - May 31, 2010

DC SCHOOL MARCHING BANDS, GARY SINISE, GENERAL PETER PACE, JOE MANTEGNA, & HEROES OF EVERY GENERATION

WASHINGTON, May 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Memorial Day Parade Presented by Boeing will take place Monday, May 31, 2010 at 2:00 PM on Constitution Avenue between 7th and 17th Streets NW.

Nearly 300,000 Americans are expected in what has become the nation's largest Memorial Day event. The parade will include marching bands and musical entertainers, celebrity military supporters, veterans groups, and uniformed military personnel from around the country. 

The parade will feature a special tribute to the U.S. Marine Corps and will be led by Grand Marshal General Peter Pace, the only Marine to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Military supporters Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna will once again join the parade, along with former Marine drill instructor and actor R. Lee Ermey, Medal of Honor recipients, and R.V. Burgin, the Marine veteran portrayed in the HBO miniseries, The Pacific.

The parade will come to a pause at 3:00 PM to commemorate the National Moment of Remembrance, during which taps will be played and Anthony Kearns of the famed Irish Tenors will perform Amazing Grace.

The National Memorial Day Parade was inaugurated in 2005, after a nearly 70-year-period in which Washington, DC was without a parade on Memorial Day. It has quickly grown into the largest Memorial Day parade in the nation, with thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of spectators. It will be televised live nationwide on the Military Channel and the Pentagon Channel.

The parade is founded and organized by the American Veterans Center, a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to preserving and promoting the legacy of our military personnel. The 2010 National Memorial Day Parade is presented by Boeing, with additional support from Hewlitt-Packard, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, American Airlines, The Perot Foundation, MorganFranklin, the State of Kuwait, among many others.

SOURCE American Veterans Center