Photographs by Laura Alvarez

The Westport Police Department Honor Guard helped lead off the 2025 Memorial Day Parade.

A weekend of cool, rainy weather more reminiscent of late March than late May improved Monday to give Westport a picture-perfect day in the 70s for the town’s Memorial Day Parade.

A retired antique fire truck was among the apparatus featured at the 2025 Memorial Day parade in Westport Monday.
The Y’s Men of Westport & Weston USO float.
U.S. Navy veteran Jon Fox (right), and his wife, Dorothy, Westport residents for 56 years, take in the Memorial Day parade on Monday.

The parade started at 9 a.m. on Riverside Avenue, and headed east on Post Road East, crossing the Saugatuck River via the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge, to Myrtle Avenue passing Town Hall, then to Main Street and ending at Parker Harding Plaza.

The theme of floats in this year’s parade was “Remember and Honor” and featured some 32 groups and floats, including the Westport Police and fire departments as well as Westport Volunteer EMS. Also participating were groups such as Westport Girl Scouts, Westport Little League, Staples High School Marching Band, and the Westport Rotary Club.

Westport First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker (left) and members of the Representative Town Meeting marched in the 2025 Memorial Day parade.
The Grand Marshal for Westport’s 2025 Memorial Day parade was Judge Edward R. Karazin, Jr.

The parade’s grand marshal was Judge Edward R. Karazin, Jr., who deployed to Vietnam in 1965 as a civil affairs officer in Quang Tin Province. There, he served as a Military Assistance Command Vietnam advisor in the pacification program. During his military career, Karazin was awarded the Bronze Star medal and Vietnamese Gallantry Cross. In 2021, he was inducted into the Connecticut Veterans Hall of Fame.

Immediately following the parade, a ceremony paying tribute to the nation’s fallen took place on Veterans Green, and featured a poetry reading by Poet Laureate Donna Disch and a placing of a memorial wreath by VFW Post 399 and American Legion Post 63. 

Westport Veterans salute the American flag during Memorial Day services at Veteran’s Green on Monday.
Vietnam veterans Dr. Kenneth Lippman (left) and his wife, Dr. Doris Troth Lippman. She served as a captain in the U.S. Army Nursing Corps and was vice chairman of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial project in Washington, D.C.
Stephan Taranko, who served as protocol officer in the U.S. Army artillery branch in Berlin during the Vietnam War, takes in the view of the Memorial Day parade in Westport.
Westport residents Dina Siberberg (left), Everett Aba, and Emily Bierman, watch the Memorial Day parade on Monday.
Members of the The Westport Volunteer Emergency Medical Services marched in the 2025 Memorial Day parade.
The Connecticut Veterans Honor Guard at the 2025 Memorial Day parade in Westport Monday.
Members of the Westport Soccer Association marched in the 2025 Memorial Day parade on Monday.
Members of My Team Triumph march in the 2025 Memorial Day parade in Westport.