Posted on 02/07/2018 6:34:25 AM PST by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Defense is planning a military parade at the request of President Donald Trump, White House and Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
After observing the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris last year, Mr. Trump said he wanted to hold a similar parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, perhaps to celebrate the Fourth of July.
The French parade last July, which also marked the centennial of the U.S. entry into World War I, featured more than 6,000 service members, tanks and planes overhead in an elaborate display of military might. French President Emmanuel Macron invited Mr. Trump to watch the parade beside him.
“It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Trump said in September at the Lotte New York Palace hotel. “And to a large extent, because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July Fourth in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue. I don’t know. We’re going to have to try and top it.”
The Washington Post first reported the Mr. Trump had asked the Pentagon to arrange an event in the Bastille Day style. Pentagon officials said late Tuesday that plans were in their infancy.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford, acknowledged the parade plans while traveling in Asia. “I’m aware of the president’s request and we are in the initial planning stages to meet the president’s direction,” he said during a stop in Bangkok.
The White House said the decision demonstrated Mr. Trump’s support for the military.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I’ll tell where this leads onto. You will end up with five-hundred military folks in some massive parade planning episode....spending sixteen hours a day trying to get x-number of tasks planned and coordinated. You will end up with every single GI within 20 miles of DC detailed out to the parade and thousands trucked in...just to make some statement.
I’d rather see a simplified memorial service...done on the 11th of November, and remember the fallen.
More appropriate for dictatorships. American parades are totally different.
I couldn't agree more.
I guess I’ll believe it when I see it.
FOAD
A message to the swamp coup plotters. Rolls tanks and include formations of supersonic jets to rattle their bones.
I love this idea. Patriotism and recruitment would soar.
Starting with you if you don't learn to contain your mouth.
There are three kinds - the wills, the won'ts, and the can'ts. The wills like Trump accomplish everything, the won'ts like commies oppose everything, and the can'ts like this group won't try anything.
Except the participants. When I was on active duty, I hated parades, and visits to my base by Congress critters. Both events guaranteed hours of extra work that blew up my training schedule for usually a week.
Those who have never endured a parade have no idea of the preparation time it requires. It's one royal PITA for those participating, but feel free to disagree with me.
The parade might last only 2 hours, but the planning, preparation, rehearsals, and execution require thousands of manhours and millions of dollars in cost (fuel, maintenance, transportation, billeting, meals, etc.). Troops, tanks, and aircraft don’t just show up on/overhead Pennsylvania Avenue and parade. My bona fides? I marched in Nixon’s 2nd inaugural as part of the Navy contingent, and it was a huge movement of men & materiel. Let the inaugural parades every 4 years suffice. Something much more moving? Go to Arlington National Cemetery and observe an interment with military honors — caisson, casket, honor platoon, firing party, and for some, the caparisoned horse. It affects deeply, just as did my father’s interment, and they occur almost every weekday (schedule on the ANC website).
I agree. I remember being in parades as a kid that honored our vets every year.
Let the liberal heads roll on this one.
Cracks me up.
Trump is an amazingly intelligent person. He knows that every democrat esp Pelosi and Schumer are going to scream about this. The base will pull these guys even further to the left.
Huh?
You understand that the Brits do this all the time? They parade their troops whenever they return from overseas. They parade them everyday in London.
So the president asks them to put on a show once in DC and you are against this?
Totally untrue.
I was originally going to chastise you, but then I saw the remark you were responding to...lol.
I would categorize many of those in favor of a parade as a bit ignorant of the time required for such a parade. REMF was a bit too harsh IMO.
This is what I want to see at the parade.
Bingo. Message sent.
Also, it appears that this will be a one-off affair. The plans, as the article notes, are in their infancy, so we really have no idea as to the final size and scope of this parade - it is currently a blank slate onto which people project their own idea of something that the President might do.
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