SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Veterans, marching bands, military organizations, and community groups filled the streets of downtown Scranton Saturday as the annual Northeastern Pennsylvania Armed Forces Day Parade returned for another year of patriotic celebration.<\/p>\n
The parade stepped off from the Gino J. Merli Veterans\u2019 Center Saturday morning before making its way through downtown and ending at Courthouse Square.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s event featured 51 participating organizations, including veterans groups, ROTC units, police and fire departments, marching bands, military vehicle clubs, and civic organizations from across the region.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity served as the parade\u2019s lead official. Garrity is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel who served three deployments during her military career, including tours connected to the Gulf War and Iraq War.<\/p>\n
The parade tradition dates back to 1950 and remains one of northeastern Pennsylvania\u2019s longest-running patriotic events.<\/p>\n
Organizers say the parade faded in the late 1980s before being revived in 1999 by a group of local veterans and community leaders determined to restore the regional tradition. The 2026 event honored the seven individuals credited with helping bring the parade back.<\/p>\n
The modern event is organized by the Northeastern Pennsylvania Armed Forces Day Parade Association, a volunteer-led nonprofit focused on honoring military service and supporting veterans in the community.<\/p>\n
Among the participants Saturday were the 55th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Tobyhanna Army Depot, multiple American Legion and VFW posts, the USS Scranton Base of the U.S. Submarine Veterans, Blue Star Mothers of NEPA, and numerous local high school marching bands.<\/p>\n
Following the parade, crowds gathered along Linden Street for a community celebration featuring live music, food, and veterans outreach activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Veterans, marching bands, military organizations, and community groups filled the streets of downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-194375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}