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Though the parade was cobbled together at the last minute, roughly 50 veterans stepped out onto H Street at the blast of the cannon on Monday.

Crescent City has celebrated Veterans Day with a parade for years, but this year the local Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and Boy Scout chapters began planning the annual event about three weeks ago, said organizer David Cooper, a representative of VFW Post 1381.

Despite the short notice, about 13 different organizations were represented in the parade including the Chetco Shriners, Del Norte 4H Club, the Del Norte High School Band and local first responders.

Cooper, who is a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, saw combat in Kosovo, Iraq in 2003 and in Djibouti and around the Horn of Africa. He said it’s important not to get into politics while honoring those who served.

“To me, Veterans Day is a day to come together as people and acknowledge those who stood on the wall to defend our nation,” he said.

For Paulette Cooper and Jamie Brassard, Veteran’s Day means also honoring the women who served.

Paulette Cooper joined the U.S. Army in 1985 and was on active duty in Germany. She ended her military career as a corpsman in the Navy Reserves. Cooper called Navy corpsmen “mini doctors,” who were sent into the field to stabilize injured soldiers. She said she had to do a lot of the same things her male counterparts did.

“I’m happy that women are taking more of a lead,” she said.

Brassard said women didn’t join the military when she served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the latter end of the Vietnam War, from 1972 to 1974.

“Women Marines back in those days were called BAMs — broad-ass Marine,” she said. “I only weighed 90 pounds.”

Brassard comes from a military family. Her great grandparents and her parents, including her mother, served. She said her mother was in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. It was worse then, she said. The only service women who weren’t looked down on back then were nurses, Brassard said.

However, after working with the Department of Defense and on military bases her whole life, things have changed. Women have come a long way, Brassard said.

“I never thought I’d see a woman in combat,” she said. “My husband was in Iraq and he flat out told me the two women (he served with), he trusted them more than some of the guys over there.”

Brassard said though she knew what she was in for, she joined the Marines because “she couldn’t find a job she liked” and her parents told her she could do anything she wanted. She said her job was to pick up refugees toward the end of the Vietnam War.

“Would I do it again?” Brassard said. “Yes. In a heartbeat.”

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