There’s a big parade in Washington, D.C. Saturday evening. On the streets: tanks and thousands of soldiers. In the air: flyovers and parachute jumps. And for taxpayers, a big price tag: as much as $45 million. It’s all to honor the Army’s 250th anniversary, which is also President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. Military historian Richard Kohn joins John Yang to discuss.
It’s pretty obvious what message he’s sending with this since only countries like Russia or North Korea do this
He got the idea after seeing the parade in France. Many countries do this. This was the celebration of the army being 250 years, which would have happened anyway, it just changed to his birthday. If you compare it to the parades of China, Russia and North Korea, this was a parade ordered on Aliexpress. It was only partially a military parade, the other half were larpers and barily anyone could walk the same pase, walk in a straight lines or wear their uniform properly as they should. It was a laughing stock. It was a walking museum tour at best. Even the military parade in the Netherlands looked more impressive than this.
This is a military parade. This is a military parade. This is a military parade.
The parade was planned for over a year. Trump just changed the date.
No, there was a celebration planned, but no parade. That was only added to the celebration a couple of months ago on Trump’s personal orders.