A thankyou to a US based poster...
I WATCHED THE ENTIRE MILITARY PARADE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO
Here's what it was like...
• The initial forecast was for 200,000 spectators, though it appeared less than half of that turned out. Estimates ranged from 50,000-100,000—half of the estimated turnout for the "NO KINGS" protest in L.A. alone (early estimates report 5+ million nationwide).
• The parade itself was actually kind of embarrassing. Even though none of us wanted the U.S. to engage in the kind of authoritarian shows of force Russia, China, and N. Korea are fond of putting on, we've all seen video of those parades—even when they have those huge, goofy strides like their entire military is auditioning for the Ministry of Silly Walks—with tens of thousands of soldiers marching in lockstep precision, it's still SUPER IMPRESSIVE how in sync they all are.
We didn't do anything cool like that.
For the most part, our boys were BARELY synced up to "Left—Left—Left, Right, Left." And don't even try to tell me that that's because our troops are too focused on lethality and warfighting these days to waste time honing their precision goosestepping because we had like 14 marching bands and probably 5 times as many flutes and tubas as Apaches and tanks.
Rather than the Mighty Show Of Military Might Trump was obviously going for, the whole thing came off like the kind of cheesy parade you'd see at Disney World — various regiments in period pieces spanning the ages from the Revolutionary War down through....the L.A. protests, I guess. An emcee over the loudspeaker read off a clunkily-worded "bio/history" for each group that walked past, and the whole thing felt like being on the people-mover winding through Tomorrowland (I haven't been to Disney World since '99, so shut up if that's not a ride anymore).
• There were at least 4 fly-bys of various aircraft—plus a jump from the Golden Knights parachute team—but it was so overcast that you could barely see anything. I assume it would've looked cool if the whole event hadn't made God cry.
• There were some pretty sweet tanks and vehicles, but they were so sparse and spread out that they seemed like more of an afterthought than the Big Stupid Expensive Thing everyone kept imagining this was gonna be.
Some of the vehicles though....I have no idea why someone thought it would be a good idea to put these in a Military Might parade. I get that they were trying to showcase vehicles from different eras, but maybe be a bit more judicious with WHICH vehicles get to do a solo? I mean, a few dozen 1940s Jeeps all in formation would probably look SWEET. You know what doesn't though? ONE JEEP driving down the street all by itself. One of the vehicles they showcased didn't even have a windshield. I turned to my wife and said, "The hell is that, a RIDING MOWER?"
• The soundtrack for the whole thing was Cringe on steroids: Metallica, Van Halen, AC/DC—a bunch of rockin' tunes that usually get a crowd fired up, only they didn't use the actual songs. Since none of those bands would approve their music being used for such a spectacle, the Army apparently recorded their own versions of the songs without any vocals, which was like listening to karaoke tracks. (Van Halen's "Right Now" is WAY up on my all-time-favs list, but without Sammy Hagar, the song loses all its punch.)
• The MOST CRINGE aspect of the whole thing was that each section of the parade had corporate sponsors and the emcee kept reading them off like a sports play-by-play announcer who has to keep reminding the folks at home that "This field goal attempt is brought to you by Jimmy John's Subs. Jimmy John's—always Freaky Fast!"
But apparently they couldn't find all that many corporate sponsors who wanted to be a part of this. The 5 sponsors I counted were—I sh*t you not—Lockheed Martin, Coinbase, UFC, Scott's Miracle Grow, and...f****** PALANTIR!
In summary, the entire thing came off like amateur hour. You can tell America doesn't do these very often (the last one was in '91 to celebrate the end of the Persian Gulf War, and before that was the end of WW2), and maybe that's for good reason. This didn't even come across like a dress rehearsal. This came across like the Army was like, "We're gonna do a parade—who wants to be in it? Meet us out on the street tomorrow afternoon so we can get a headcount of everyone—PLEASE BE SURE TO BRING YOUR TUBAS IF YOU'VE GOT ONE—and then we'll sit down and diagram the whole thing on paper before we start rehearsing," but then everyone showed up the next afternoon and the Army was like F*** rehearsal, we're doing this thing NOW!!!! Everyone, START MARCHING(ish)!"
No part of this pitiful disaster was a show of American Military Might. It was a cry for help and an indictment against kicking gays out of the military - exactly the kind of parade you’d expected when you fired the only people who know how to throw a proper parade.
So, in the end...Trump got exactly the kind of birthday he deserved.
