The Reign of His Parade

The fact that Trump is obsessed with having a military parade in his honor, when he was worse than a draft-dodger, is an obvious problem that any fair-minded person should be able to see with his June 14 plans. Another is that we just don't have preemptive parades with tanks and military gear on display in this country.

There was a letter in the Star Tribune a few days ago that raised an additional problem with Trump's plans:

Since 1993 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (paid for by private donations) has sponsored the “In Memory” program for those who served in the war and died later due in some part to their service. My late partner is one of this year’s inductees. It always occurs on Father’s Day weekend and this year the “In Memory” inductee program has been scheduled for June 14 for over a year. It takes place on the Washington Mall and families and friends (as of now, over 3,000) of this year’s inductees are invited and attend the ceremony. The name of each of the 2024 inductees will be read aloud by one of those family members. This involves months and months of planning and work on the part of the staff of the VVMF. Hotels, shuttles, coordinating information and schedules with those visitors, preparation of materials, etc., are parts of that work.

With only a month’s notice, and clearly no contact with nor consideration for any of the veteran memorials on the Washington Mall, President Donald Trump has decided to have a costly military parade on the same date that will likely go by the Vietnam Memorial. This has forced the staff of the VVMF to scramble. An alternate location and total changes to shuttles, equipment and repeated updates to attendees are likely necessitated. Families have had flight and hotel reservations in place for months, so rescheduling this longstanding event is not feasible.

Interesting that this last-minute celebration for the birthday of the U.S. Army also coincides with Trump’s birthday. I wonder if he plans similar celebrations for the 250th birthday of the Marine Corps in November. Had heel bone spurs not prevented Trump from serving in the Vietnam War, or if any of his children had served in the military, perhaps he would have more consideration for the families of these men. I am a staunch supporter of veterans but given the massive cuts to programs supporting veterans’ needs, having a parade costing millions of dollars seems disingenuous at best and certainly inappropriate.

Janet Grieder, Maple Grove

As usual, Trump has no consideration for anyone else, and would never have thought to see what other events might be scheduled that weekend. His wants come first.

I have a fourth problem with the plan. Trump claims the parade is a celebration of the Army's 250th birthday. We have just entered what will be a long list of 250th anniversaries for the founding of this country, which started recently with the battles of Lexington and Concord. That seems like the thing that might have had a big commemoration if you wanted to do a kickoff. Or (we can assume) the Independence Day in 2026 will be the biggest one. It's probably too much to ask that those celebrations will not be cringe-worthy.

But the anniversary of the Army? It's obviously an excuse, and a militarized one at that. 

In 1975, did we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Army in a big public way, leading up to the very-much-choreographed Bicentennial? There may have been an internal commemoration, but it wasn't part of the whole shindig, and there definitely wasn't a parade with tanks rolling down the street. 

Even 16-year-old me would have remembered that.