Drive-by parade in Annandale will honor WWII veteran on her 100th birthday

A display of veterans at the Mission BBQ restaurant in Chantilly features George and Genevieve Desmarais.

Members of the community are invited to join a drive-by salute on Jan. 3 in Annandale in honor of Genevieve Desmarais’ 100th birthday. 

Desmarais, a World War 11 veteran, lives at Brightview Senior Living on Gallows Road with her husband, George, who will be 96 in February. 

They will be looking out the window as people honk as they drive by in decorated cars. Anyone who wants to join the parade should meet at the Holmes Run Pool parking lot at 3451 Gallows Road several minutes before the parade starts at 3 p.m.  

Both Genevieve and George got COVID-19 in November. They had a persistent cough but no fever or any other symptoms and have recovered. “We’re very blessed,” says their daughter, Carol Ann Miller. 

Genevieve Desmarais

Genevieve was born in Erie, Pa., and signed up for the Navy in 1944, Miller says. After training in New York City, she served as a yeoman, performing secretarial duties in Washington, D.C. 

She met George, a sergeant in the Army Air Corps, at a dance hosted by the USO and Knights of Columbus. After the war, they lived in D.C., then Camp Springs, Md., and raised six kids.

They had been scheduled to participate in an Honor Flight earlier this year, but those activities were canceled due to the pandemic. 

Honor Flights bring veterans from all over the country to visit the war memorials in Washington, D.C. 

Instead of flights to D.C., veterans from Northern Virginia are taken by bus for a Day of Honor, that includes breakfast, visits to the World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Air Force, and Iwo Jima memorials; the horse stables at Fort Meyer; and a special changing of the guard ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, says Dianne Nicely Klopp of Honor Flight – Top of Virginia. 

The veterans are given letters from Scout and church groups on the way home and are treated to a welcome-home celebration and dinner at the end of the trip. 

When the Desmarais’ honor flight was canceled, Klopp suggested the birthday drive-by as an alternative.  

Mission BBQ, a restaurant in Chantilly, features a photo of George and Genevieve on its wall of honor and plans to bring its BBQ truck to the parade.