Trump wants military parade in Washington, PRK, er, DC

[Scooter]

Trump tells Pentagon to plan a military parade

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump has asked for a military parade and the Pentagon is reviewing potential dates, Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers said Tuesday.

The spokesman described the planning process as being in its "infancy."

In response to the news, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump had asked the Defense Department to "explore" the idea.

"President Trump is incredibly supportive of America's great servicemembers who risk their lives every day to keep our country safe. He has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation," Sanders said.

The Washington Post first reported Trump told top Pentagon brass last month he wants a military parade.

"The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France," a military official told the paper. "This is being worked at the highest levels of the military."

Trump's meeting with senior military leaders last month included Vice President Mike Pence, White House chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Trump was French President Emmanuel Macron's guest on Bastille Day last year, and later called the French military parade he witnessed "one of the greatest parades" he had ever seen.

He said last September in a conversation with Macron that when he came back from France he wanted a military parade on the Fourth of July in Washington.

Trump's call for a military parade might be hitting a few snags. The Post said shipping tanks and military hardware into Washington could cost millions of dollars, and that military officials said they were unsure how to pay for it.

Someone has gotten awfully insecure about the size of his dick

[Crackpot]

That hasn’t even a surprise since “little fingers”.

[Lord Jim]

I wonder if Cadet Bone Spurs (nice nickname that Tammy Duckworth came up with) would also like to have a specially designed uniform made for him like Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco...

Oh wait, those three actually served in the military...

[Scooter]

It really is obscene though, because you know it's all about him standing there and receiving all those salutes, and believing that he actually earned them.

[Econoline]

From Jim Wright on Facebook:

• Look, here's the thing:
  
  Tough guys, the real deal, the snake eaters, those confident in their abilities, they don't brag, they don't swagger, they don't need to impress you with macho bullshit. They know who they are. Their brothers know who they are. Those guys, the truly deadly ones, they don't go looking for a fight. They avoid it, if possible. But if trouble finds them, well, then they end it. Without fanfare, without bluster, without cock waggling. They do what is necessary BECAUSE it's necessary and no more.
  
  It's the blowhards, the cowards, the insecure, who strive constantly to impress you with their macho toughness and bulging muscles, with their tales of derring-do, with their war stories and their supposed heroics. They threaten and brag and swagger and crave your adulation.
  
  But it's the guy in the back, the quiet one in the shadows with his hands in his pockets, you should be afraid of. Because HE doesn't need your respect. Or your admiration. Or your fear. And you have no idea what his true capability is.
  
  Now, if you're a repressive dictatorship with a cardboard military and a massive inferiority complex, you parade your tanks through the streets to impress the peasants. To brag and swagger and threaten the world with your macho.
  
  But if you're confident, truly confident in your abilities to face any threat, then you don't need to brag, you don't need to threaten, you don't need to demand respect with your fists. You're the quiet one, in the shadows, watchful, capable, ready, and your enemies have no idea what you can do.
  
  This parade Trump wants, this brag and swagger, this obvious and pathetic threat, this demand for respect, it's the ideology of a nation that is weak and insecure and AFRAID and desperately hoping that nobody else notices.

[Bicycle Bill]

If Dumb'old Trump wants to know who deserves a military parade, all he need do is go down to the northwest end of the National Mall and check out the names inscribed here:



These are the names of the people ... the real people, of all ethnic origins ... who fight — and win — the politicians' wars.
And the name of Trump, any Trump, is conspicuous in its absence.

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

Who can ever forget these guys? How soon before they make a reappearance?

Not surprisingly, it's military grandiosity envisioned by two of America's most unhinged presidents.



BTW -- doesn't that "guard" in the foreground look like Elvis?

[Burning Petard]

What do you mean POTUS never served in the military?!? He was in Jr ROTC in high school. That's where he learned more about ISIS than the generals.

Am I the only one around here who actually served active duty as an enlisted in the Regular Army? Parades are hated by the rankers. Ordering this parade is a great way to drive POTUS' approval rating down among the military. [if is possible, the pollsters may even have a problem like the fed reserve a couple of years ago--how do you lower the interest rate when it is already close to zero. Can POTUS have a negative approval rating?]

snailgate

[Scooter]

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump’s request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating.

Harland Dorrinson, a Pentagon spokesman, said that, within an hour of Trump’s request, more than a hundred thousand military personnel complained that they were suffering from acute cases of bone spurs that would make marching in such a parade a painful ordeal.

“In the history of the U.S. military, we have never experienced a bone-spur epidemic of this magnitude,” the spokesman said. “Regrettably, however, we have no choice but to issue thousands of deferments.”

A statement from the bone-spur sufferers said that they would continue to valiantly serve their country around the world in a non-marching capacity, and offered an alternative to their participation in Trump’s proposed pageant.

“President Trump is welcome to march in the parade all by himself if he would finally like to enlist,” the statement read.

[Scooter]

[ex-khobar Andy]

On a business trip to Washington in 1985 or so I visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial one evening. As someone who marched against the war in the safe confines of London, I did not expect to be moved - but I was. On my way back to my hotel I walked back up 23rd St which bridges the E Street Expressway - a quick route west from the White House. As I was crossing that bridge, I was yelled at from a helicopter: "Turn around and get off the bridge!" I had never been addressed by a helicopter before and had not noticed it. (How can you not notice a helicopter hovering 100 feet above you? I have no idea; but I may have been lost in thought about the VVM.) I probably did not even know that I was on a bridge. Obviously I was not obeying quickly enough for the guys in the chopper because they repeated their request but more urgently. As I scurried back (I resisted the normal urge to say "Who the fuck are you and I pay my fucking taxes and I can walk on any fucking bridge I want!") I stole a glance over the parapet in time to see a motorcade of black vehicles coming swiftly from the east. Reagan on his way somewhere. It did put the evening into perspective.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I wonder if someone will make a picture of Trump poking his head out of a tank, Dukakis-style. I'd like that.

[rubato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8phtUtst9UA

[MajGenl.Meade]

As someone who marched against the war in the safe confines of London, I did not expect to be moved - but I was.

I had the same experience, Andy. Not the Reagan part; the above. Were you in the march from Temple Station via Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park (?) in '69 or '70?

[Big RR]

I agree Meade and Andy; I never marched in London (but participated in a number of US antiwar marches), and found the memorial incredibly moving--in fact, it is probably the monument that most moved me, even eclipsing the tomb of the unknown soldier. I had a number of friends who went to Vietnam, even a few who did not come back, and I think this memorial acknowledges their sacrifices without being overly sentimental or jingoistic. Far more moving than any flag waving parade could ever be.

[RayThom]

I was at the antiwar protest march in DC in '67. Our little group gathered near the GW Monument and eventually went over the Arlington Bridge toward the Pentagon. After crossing the bridge I started to crap out (I was new to the drinking game and I was hungover from the night before) and took a break in Potomac Park. My friend and I kind of said screw it, and when most of the crowd past, we reversed course, and hiked back to my car parked near the DCPD, to head for home.

I wasn't quite a "long hair hippie" yet so the "establishment" -- police and American Nazis -- didn't bother us upon our return trek. On the following Monday at work I said very little about my adventure because, at that time, there were more gung-ho troglodytes than people of insight. Besides, the company I worked with, Westinghouse, was considered a "defense plant" and I needn't bite the hand that fed me.

A few years later, with my hair growing past my shoulder blades, hardly anyone cared. The crowning moment was Tricky Dick resigning in disgrace. And the rest is history.

[Big RR]

I always said the 60s began when Kennedy was assassinated and ended when Nixon resigned.

[Burning Petard]

I believe the last military parade in Washington, DC was on 28 July 1932, to honor the veterans of WWI. More than 17,000 veterans participated, along with about 43,000 friends and family. General Douglas MacArthur was parade marshal. The parade featured six tanks.

snailgate

later edit: Sorry Scooter, I'm from Missouri, not Canada. We make a virtue out of skepticism and cynacism.

[Scooter]

Now you're just being nasty.

[Scooter]