The Late Hurrah

Justice delayed, insists the legal axiom, is justice denied. Some similar principle must apply to gratitude. When offered too late it turns into something else, a thank-you made soggy by the slop-over of guilt and apology. It was scarcely surprising, then, that many Viet Nam War veterans were somewhat wary when New York City cranked up a welcome-home parade ten years after the end of the conflict.

But last week's outpouring of public warmth and support for the veterans was massive and genuine beyond dispute: a gesture of splendid grandeur. As sheer spectacle, the tribute was a rousing success. It was vintage Big Apple, a ticker-tape parade through the canyons of lower Manhattan. Blizzards of litter (duly calculated to be 468 tons). Bands blaring (God Bless America and The + Caisson Song). Onlookers shouting down from skyscraping heights. Placards and posters flashing and bobbing (YOU'RE OUR HEROES and THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICES). Throngs (perhaps a million, according to police) cheering, clapping and even weeping at streetside. The guests of honor, some 25,000 strong, were a wonderfully motley montage of sloppy fatigues, permanent-press suits, blue jeans, camouflage twills, blow-dried hair, scraggly beards, relic berets. They added up to the biggest collection of people ever feted at one time in such a parade.

Mayor Ed Koch led the procession, pushing the wheelchair of Long Island Assemblyman John Behan, 40, who lost both legs to a land mine near Da Nang. General William Westmoreland marched for a bit, then dropped out to watch from the reviewing stand, but finally rejoined the straggle in the street (against the advice of police) when passing Army vets invited him with the call, "Westy! Westy!" Said he: "I love these guys, and I am going to march with them." Spectators and veterans repeatedly came together in spontaneous embraces. After bussing a woman of about 60, Brooklynite Mark Carraway, 35, said, "It certainly did feel good."

While the overdue welcome home overwhelmed most veterans with its warmth, the parade failed to move some who have been left bitter by years of public indifference. Ex-Marine Jerry White, 35, could not accept it as a thank-you. Said he: "It's more like a political convention or something." Army Veteran John-Paul Body, 36, took part only reluctantly, wary of "romanticizing the war." Afterward he dipped into the vocabulary of psychospiritualism to offer his appraisal: "It was more like an exorcism." Still, no matter how dark or ambiguous their emotions, few seemed to disagree with the end-of-the-show assessment that came from ex-Army Specialist Lester Modelowitz, 38. "Nothing will ever make up for the ten years," he said, "but New York did a hell of a job."