With ramrod-straight posture and raised right hands, a hundred of the nation's newest military recruits took the oath of enlistment at a sober Veterans Day remembrance in downtown Dallas.

Wreaths, yellow ribbons and the names of the 13 casualties from last week's Fort Hood massacre flanked a stage at Dallas City Hall that held politicians, war veterans and high-ranking officers.

Recruit Brenda Morales stood in the shadow of flags flying at half-staff, only minutes before the start of Wednesday's Dallas Veterans Day Parade, one of many commemorations across North Texas.

The 24-year-old from Abilene struggled to put words to the emotion.

"I guess you just have to be ready for anything," she said before the swearing-in ceremony. "To me, this is about doing something important and doing something worthwhile with your life. It's a good decision."

Patriotism, education opportunities and family tradition drew others to service this day.

"These wars will only last so long," said Josh Poulin, a 19-year-old Air Force recruit from Coppell. "But the opportunities I will be given by joining will last a lifetime."

Veterans in the crowd agreed that service would be life-changing for the recruits – but differed on exactly how.

A 22-year-old Marine sergeant, back in Dallas after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the shooting in Fort Hood served as a reminder of how badly new soldiers were needed.

"As long as we've got terrorists running around, we'll always be called to arms," said the sergeant, who asked not to be named.

Watching the recruits take their oaths reminded the Marine of his own decision to enlist when he was 17.

"We believe in my family that every man should serve in the military at least four years," he said. "These kids are just showing what they're worth."

A few feet from the young sergeant stood Willie Crockett, a Vietnam veteran whose rings and gold watch covered the old shrapnel scars that ran along one arm.

Like several veterans from his generation, Crockett's enthusiasm for the recruits was qualified by his own history.

"It gives me an eerie feeling," he said. "I know where these kids are going, from start to finish."

Crockett became an iron worker after Vietnam – he helped build several of the bank towers the parade would snake through that day. But terrible memories followed him out of the jungles, leading to depression and other illnesses that forced him into retirement years ago.

He worried that the eager young faces marching past him that morning would face a similar future.

Not that the military didn't make him the man he is today.

Crockett stood straight as any recruit and saluted every flag that passed during the ceremony. He didn't flinch at the sharp crackle of ceremonial gunfire, nor when four fighter jets screamed overhead.

But behind his sunglasses, old memories flashed with each echo of war.

"When those airplanes went over I had to suck air," he said after the ceremony.

As the veterans reminisced and the recruits marched off , a seemingly endless parade made its way down Main Street toward City Hall.

At the front of the procession, the Skyline High School band whipped up a staccato of drumbeats and chanting that kept the audience's blood pumping. Behind them, the layers of pageantry stretched from Ervay to Houston streets and beyond: vets and cadets, flags and camouflage, jeep after jeep and even a tactical truck full of jazz-tap dancers.

A solitary figure amid the spectacle was perhaps the parade's most striking sight: a man hauling two canvas medical bags, shrouded in a green poncho, his lifeless face painted silver-grey.

The specter was Jerry Kasten, an Army photographer in the 1950s who was dressed as a statue of a Navy medic from the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The parade's theme this year was a salute to the medical corps. The parade's homages became less traditional as the day grew warmer. Vets on Harleys, rollerblading cheerleaders and Ronald McDonald brought up the rearguard.

"It feels surreal," said David Duffy. A medic for four years during Desert Storm, this was his first time in the parade.

The Fort Hood massacre lent it special significance.

"I wanted to be here because I wanted to let the families know we're all here," Duffy said of his brothers and sisters in arms. "We are one huge family."

It's a family of many generations.

In their maroon ex-POW vests, World War II pilots Bob Cash and J. Ray Lemons divined a simple message from the parade.

"It means we're still alive," Lemons said.

Across town, another Veterans Day story was unfolding.

At the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Field, Texas Women Airforce Service Pilots were honored for their part in World War II.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison presented the WASPs with copies of the legislation awarding the pioneers with Congressional Gold Medals. The medals will be officially presented in March.

"This is the time to honor all of those who have served our country," Hutchison said. "Thank you for not taking no for an answer, for saying you were going to serve our country, no matter how many obstacles there were."

Women Airforce Service Pilots had to pay their own way to Texas for training and foot the cost to get back home when their service was over.

They were considered civil service employees and never militarized.

Because records of their service were either sealed or ignored, their stories have largely gone untold. In 1977, Congress granted veteran status to WASPs. Two years later, they were given official honorable discharges.

Deanie Bishop Parrish, a WASP now living in Waco, said it was an "honor and privilege" to serve her country.

"Our history is still virtually unknown," she said. "Today, because of some remarkable, determined women, that is changing."

Staff writers Jaimie Siegle and Gromer Jeffers Jr. contributed to this report.