NO matter what critics say about the parade, the Wash Post said it best. It was a good history lesson and an inspiration for those young people who wish to serve their country in the best possible way. A great propaganda tool to get more people into the military when they are needed the most.
I am proud of our military and the time I spent in uniform.
The Israelis have it right. Everyone should serve in the military to understand that all citizens have a duty to defend our country against those countries who wish to diminish our strength and importance in this world.
Unfortunately, there are a number of posters who share that distasteful belief because they do not understand the goodness and importance of our great nation.
Trump wanted a military spectacle. Instead, he got a history lesson.
The parade must go on, and the Army sidestepped a major crisis of image and messaging.
June 15, 2025 at 2:49 p.m. EDT Yesterday at 2:49 p.m.
The
Army’s 250th birthday parade was not the grand military spectacle that many anticipated, and for that Americans can breathe a momentary, measured sigh of relief.
It was a family-friendly conclusion to a celebratory day, with events on the Mall and fireworks at the end. What had been
billed as an overwhelming display of military might turned out to be a linear history lesson, from the early days of revolution to the age of robotic dogs and flying drones. A narrator made sense of it all over loudspeakers and for those watching the live stream on television, with a script that rarely strayed from the Army’s disciplined sense of itself as a lethal fighting machine in the service of democracy and the Constitution.
The soldiers who paraded past the presidential reviewing stand on Constitution Avenue walked with a loose-limbed gait, disciplined but not robotic, with individual soldiers integrated into the collective without losing their identity. Those riding by on tanks, trucks and other combat vehicles waved and smiled, engaging with an enthusiastic crowd. The announcer often sounded as if he were narrating a fashion show for machines rather than a military parade. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle: “It is fast, it is tough, and it is lethal.”
