Posted on 06/15/2025 11:35:32 AM PDT by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I’d like to see the online ratings. I was glued to the set!
Also, it was good to see the appreciation. When I walked through airports in my uniform during Vietnam, I thought I was going to have to punch a few folks out for their cussing and spitting. We were (and are) totally unappreciated.
I was there. It was very well attended, in spite of the threatened thunderstorm and constant drizzle much of the day. And unlike a typical Trump rally, this one required almost half a day to go through various security points, find your place, and last through the entire event. Driving to it was impossible, and even if you took the Metro, you had to walk many long blocks to get to the main viewing area. It was a glorious, once-in-a-lifetime event. So glad I pushed through old-age, arthritis and standing for hours to see it.
That was under BIDEN....
I’m glad you could safely make it there and back.
You’ll have that memory, the adventure of the entire experience, that no one can ever take away!
President Trump is One of a Kind, of that I am sure.
It was wonderful. Get over yourself.
Where was the missing 101st Airborne Division? One of the most historic and battle tested divisions in the Army was virtually invisible and absent. This Screaming Eagle vet was VERY disappointed. Meanwhile the article lumping the Confederacy in with Nazi Germany and Impreial Japan destroyed any credibility the writer has, if he had any to start with.
Aw. Poor you.
They spoke about airborne in parade.
You are totally wrong.
For Father’s Day. Father was an army poet. He wrote the dedication poem for History of the Second Infantry, The Regimental Patch. In his book of poetry, one of his poems describes the marching,
https://iment.com/maida/family/father/oldsoldiersdrums/p14-asawa-ni-ako-15-oldsoldiersdrums.htm
OLD SOLDIERS’ DRUMS
I’m just too old for drilling
I can’t hike anymore;
So I’m bound for the soldiers’ graveyard
Behind an office door.
They sing - “Old soldiers never die.”
We don’t; we live on crumbs -
The shrilling, splendid bugles
An’ the thunder of the drums!
I won’t do Guard in a snowstorm
An’ I won’t hafta go an’ fire;
It’s just messin’ around an office
An’ waiting to retire.
“Approved per First Indorsement ...”
An’ through the window comes
The music of a Guardmount
An’ the cadenced, throbbin’ drums!
Twenty-three and a butt in the Doughboys;
Why, I’ve hiked a million miles!
But they said my age couldn’t stand it
An’ they detailed me to the files!
This work is nice for some men
Who can take it as it comes.
But you know their hearts ain’t achin’
For the pullin’, poundin’ drums!
D.S. 1/4C. an’ a non-combatant!
When there’s guys tha’d give their life
To piddle around an office
An’ go home at night to the wife.
But I’ll get back to formation;
There’s a day that always comes:
An’ I’ll ride on a painted cassion
With the muffled, sobbin’ drums!
***
and another poem imagines the life of a Roman soldier, including the chaffing uniform.
https://iment.com/maida/family/father/oldsoldiersdrums/p28-amanchutemple-29-asongoflegions.htm
A SONG OF LEGIONS
Then the Legions turned from Britain
On the long white road to Caul
From the purple patterned heather
Bound tight against the Wall.
The Little Painted Peoples
Ran shadows through the grass
As they clawed aside the branches
To watch our Eagles pass.
The gallant, vanquished Eagles
With their faces turned toward home,
The proud and polished Eagles
That led the shields from Rome.
The blazing day flung glory
From each rank of tilted spears
And the Cohorts sang of Roma
As their thoughts rolled back the years.
The salt sweat burned the callous
Where the wet straps tugged and tore
And each shift of shield and armour
But seemed to cut the more.
This land was Rome’s and Romans held it
Though the black seas bit the beach,
And wing-helmed through ice and snow whorls
Came those of alien speech.
Huge men and brave in combat
Yellow-haired and raiders all;
But they dropped sail once near Vectis
And we pinned them near the Wall.
Good blades and mighty axemen
And they met us knee to knee,
But our sullen, dark browed Legion
Turned and flung them back to sea.
Yes, they tossed their sails and left us
Bruised and battered, bloody, numb
Yes, we whipped them, whipped them, whipped them
But they never ceased to come!
They’ll come again and take this
All this bleakly lovely shore;
The Picts can never stop them
And the Eagles soar no more.
For the Legions turn from Britain
And their half-completed task -
Rome’s will - there is no question
That a soldier dares to ask,
Dares to ask or stops to wonder -
There is no Law but Rome!
But the land my comrades died in
The Legions called it - home.
So true. I was telling my family, the last time I recall seeing a parade with the heavy military equipment and tanks was July 4th in Philadelphia in the 70s. They realized it was the Bicentennial -- Ameriica's 200 year anniversary, 1976. It seems like yesterday to me, blessed and cursed with a detailed memory, but it was 50 years ago.
Witnessing what Trump is doing is like waking from a nightmare of the past 70 years of “liberal” crap sandwiches shoved down our throats. I pray that this turnaround takes root and restores our Republic.
Your dad had talent! Many thanks for both of those wonderful poems! 🙂
Max Boot is a Russian-born Yale/Berkeley educated neocon. Not someone who would agree with Trump on much, or even understand him.
Good one. Thanks for the giggle.
He hasn’t
Not long ago I read a biography of George Washington, which included approximately the same information about his taking command. It’s a damn good thing the man hadn’t just thrown up his hands and walked away when he saw what he was faced with, not only in the beginning, but the problems he had all through the war with getting the things the Army needed to survive and be victorious against the British. Any other man would have quit having experienced such issues. He was a fighter, and stuck with it to the end. I thank God he led this country on the battlefield and from the trenches of Washington as our First President. I see a lot of Washington in President Trump, and thank God for that.
Then it sucks to be him.
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