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).
Trump's verbal support this past year, of active-duty military and veterans, has been superb, as have his actions backing up those words. He should keep up with that course of action (as I'm sure he will) and focus on rebuilding from Obama's damage to the military.
My bona fides? Navy veteran (was in service during the final years of the Cold War), son of a 17-year Air Force veteran.
I am forever grateful that my four years in Germany were at a battalion whose mission was airbase defense. I never had to worry about extraneous BS. My first battery was over 40 miles from battalion HQ. When the base had an alert or tac eval, we were for all intents and purposes detached to the Air Force.
Unlike our brethren in Hawk and Nike-Herc units, we didn't have to worry about women being assigned to our unit. I saw the havoc that created.
My last two years, I was at Battalion HQ, mostly as the S-4. I was a real PITA by that time, and Group HQ pretty much left us alone. It was a job (Battalion Supply Officer) I was uniquely qualified for, as my degree was in Public Accounting, and very few knew our area of operations better than I.
I think I did my job well, at least as far as my Battalion Commander was concerned. We arrived back at Fort Bliss within a few months of each other, and I worked for him in another role for a year and a half.
He hated parades, too...lol.