Expand<\/a><\/p>\nBradford Rossetti lives at the Gino Merli Center. His wife couldn\u2019t be happier with the care he receives there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a wonderful facility,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re blessed to be here to support other veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing respect for veterans<\/p>\n
Air Force veteran Clinton Gregory of Montrose said the parade reflected a growing respect for those in the military.<\/p>\n
Gregory said the country has come a long way from the 1970s, when veterans of the Vietnam War often burned their uniforms upon their return home.<\/p>\n
In Pennsylvania, the Veterans Administration provides excellent medical and social services, including those available at Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center, he said.<\/p>\n
Still, he noted that most of the day\u2019s parade-goers were veterans or family members of veterans.<\/p>\n
He would hope more young people and their families would come out to such events to learn more about the military and show appreciation for veterans.<\/p>\n
Music, marching bands and more<\/p>\n
The parade included veterans organizations, community groups, military vehicles and marching bands.<\/p>\n
Ethan Ritter and Scarlett Stanton, members of the North Pocono marching band, were impressed with the number of groups and people who showed up for the event.<\/p>\n
Stanton, a freshman, said it was only the second parade in which she had participated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carmen Falcone and Matt Evans enjoyed driving vintage military vehicles in the parade, which has become a decades-long tradition for the friends<\/p>\n
The two enjoyed the warm weather, they said, which provided the perfect background for the parade\u2019s patriotic event, noting that in past years the weather hadn\u2019t always been so accommodating.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic,\u201d Falcone said, of both the parade and the temperature.<\/p>\n
The day, which started out with a 5K race, concluded with a community celebration held near Courthouse Square, which included music, food and information about resources available to veterans.<\/p>\n
Chris Shrive of Flatland Ruckus, an Army veteran, enjoyed the chance to provide a Toby Keith tribute to area residents.<\/p>\n
It was Shrive\u2019s first time at the event and he was impressed with the crowds it drew.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m honored to be here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frankie Rossetti sat with her husband outside the Gino J. Merli Veterans Center Saturday morning holding an American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[182,139,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-194428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194428","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=194428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Carmen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-0517-03.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Navy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-0517-02.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-0517-04.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-CAPST-0517-05.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-CAPST-0517-02.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Large](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-CAPST-0517-01-1.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/STT-L-PARADE-CAPST-0517-03.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n