BIDDEFORD — Children ran up and down Main Street in Biddeford, waving tiny American flags and jumping for candy as it flew through the air. Members of the armed forces, both current and former, proudly displayed their colors as they marched through the city.

Scores of people lined the streets on Friday, gathering to honor the nation’s veterans during the annual Biddeford Saco Veterans Day Parade.

Linwood Cox, who served in the U.S. Army from 1959 to 1962, proudly wore his tags on Friday as he watched the parade proceed into Biddeford’s Veterans Memorial Park.

“I have seen parades where there were a couple hundred veterans marching, and we have lost many of those veterans, so it’s good to see people come out and support our veterans,” Cox said.

Cox said the event, and all other veterans-centered events, serve as a reminder that the military is still necessary. Cox, whose cousin was killed in the Vietnam War, said that, as the nation moves toward a more “ultra-nationalist” perspective, the country needs to be on alert.

“If we return to that, the risk of war is greater. We need a strong military,” he said. “Not that we’re going to be an imperialist country, but we still need the military. We need to be alert.”

The parade and following ceremony were dedicated to Jake Mulligan, a U.S. Navy veteran who served as the district commander of the American Legion Post 26 and on the board of directors for the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 1044.

Mulligan also served as a judge advocate for the AMVETS and was on the parade’s planning committee for many years before he passed away suddenly on Oct. 29.

Friends of Mulligan who spoke at the ceremony remembered him as like a brother.

State Rep. Martin Grohman, D-Biddeford, one of the event speakers, said Mulligan formerly worked as a payroll officer for his company CorrectDeck. Grohman said Mulligan didn’t speak much but knew how to crack a joke, and was a positive influence on those around him.

“He didn’t say much. He was an accountant, after all,” Grohman joked. “But he could be funny. And I am not a veteran but I am always around the Legion hall helping out, so he told me that I was head of the Ladies Auxiliary.”

It was a warm memory of a fallen hero, and one Grohman said should be extended to all veterans. 

“On Veterans Day, we celebrate you, our American heroes, your sacrifice for the common good. We’ll never take it for granted,” Grohman said.

But veterans haven’t always been received so warmly, said guest speaker Richard Brewer, a veteran who was wounded in a suicide bomb attack in Beirut, Lebanon in 1984.

In his solemn yet hopeful closing speech, Brewer discussed the involvement of politics in matters of war, a practice he decried at length.

“Given this week, I decided to talk about politics, which is a dirty word, I know, but it impacts the lives of veterans every day,” Brewer said.

Brewer said following World Wars I and II, the nation’s veterans were honored, and treated with love and respect. But after the Korean War, he said, things began to change.

“Somehow, we began to falter as a nation. We began to let politics enter into the world of military and war,” he said. “The men and women who went off to fight in Vietnam came home not to a glorious nation, not to a mild, temperate welcome, but to a hostile nation, one that divided families and certainly divided a nation.”

As politics began to divide the nation, he said, veterans took the brunt of the discontent.

On Friday, Brewer called for people to remove politics from war and their view of veterans, saying those in the armed forces will always answer the nation’s call regardless of people’s political affiliations.

“We do not ask if you are left, right, middle — we answer your call. We raise our hand and we take an oath that is never ending: to fight against all enemies foreign and domestic. We don’t ask if it’s right or wrong, we just go and do it and we’re willing to die for it,” he said.

“I hope you can take this message with you,” Brewer said in closing. “And let people know that, regardless of where you stand in politics, keep it out of your appreciation for veterans.”

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.