I was worried about Trump’s Army parade — until I saw it

The Washington Post ^ | june 15, 2025 12:13 AM EDT | Max Boot

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I arrived for the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade in Washington D.C. on a drizzly Saturday afternoon with considerable consternation and concern.

I knew that President Donald Trump had been agitating for such a spectacle since 2017, but that his first secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, had refused, because he viewed this as something that occurred in dictatorships like Russia and North Korea. In private, Mattis reportedly said he would rather “swallow acid” than have troops parading through the capital.

Now Trump has a far more accommodating, and far less qualified, secretary of defense in Pete Hegseth, thereby opening the door to the potential politicization of the U.S. armed forces. That danger has been on display in the past week, with Trump deploying the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles over the protests of local leaders and delivering a campaign-style speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that produced disturbing video clips of 82nd Airborne troops cheering while he bashed Democrats and the media.

My worry was that Trump would turn the Army parade into just another political pageant. Those concerns only grew when I saw how many of the spectators were wearing MAGA hats or shirts.

But my apprehension began to melt away as soon as the music started to play and the soldiers began to march. Dear reader, I hope you do not think I am going soft on Trump if I tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed the entire parade.

As a military history nerd, I loved to see the soldiers marching by in period uniforms from the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. I thrilled to the flybys from historic aircraft...

[miniTAX]

“that officers want their soldiers in the best condition and that means the older uniforms and boots were not the most conducive to soldier health”

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That’s a very common misconception.
Officers want their soldiers in the best conditions only when in combat. Otherwise, they want their soldiers in the worst conditions to harden the troops and weed out the weaklings. That’s the basic tenet of any military worth its salt.
Btw, sorry to be rude but I hate when a conservative talks like a concerned snowflake, and most of all, like Max Boot.

[Albion Wilde]

You couldnt touch nmy standards on your tiptoes.

[Albion Wilde]

I can’t believe how time has just melted away.