I'm a vet...Vietnam through the Gulf War. I'm well aware of the mindset of the American soldier.
Let me do my job. Make sure I have all the resources to do my job. I don't want to go to war, but I will. If you don't have anything for me to do, cool...let me do what I want to do. Parades? Yeah...I know why we have them, but I can find better things to do with my time.
I'm also a father. My oldest son has been fascinated by the military all his life. When he was 6 years old, I used to cruise along the banana belt on Ft. Carson with him on the back of my Goldwing. He wanted me to stop at every single motor pool so he could look at all the vehicles...both armored and unarmored. He made me tell him everything I knew about each and every one of them. I studied so I had the answers for him. At the local Memorial Day Parade, the horses...the marching bands...the politicians...didn't interest him. The military...THAT'S what he wanted to see. If he wasn't deaf in one ear, he'd be coming up on his 10th year of service right about now.
I'm thinking there are a LOT of sons...and daughters...out there just like my son. A big military parade would be awesome in their eyes.
The soldiers who have to march? Yeah...they have better stuff to do. But after the parade, when they have their static displays...they are going to love the kids, like my son when he was 10 years old, who come up and want to talk about the equipment. Some of those kids, like my son, will be telling those soldiers about caliber, maximum range and rate of fire.
THAT'S why we should have a parade.
Okay very well said.
Now, do the aftermath in the middle of the Nation's Capital, which by the way, already is a defense logistical nightmare even on the best of days.
Ask anyone in the MDW Joint Force Headquarters National Capital Region, and be sure to get the opinion of someone at the U.S. Army Transportation Agency.
I do appreciate your take on this vis a vis your son, and his admiration for the pride felt by all who have served, and their families.
I do get it, but I urge all in favor of this idea to consider the fact that the ancient streets of the District of Columbia are probably the absolute worst location imaginable for such an event, and if one parade is done, more will follow, but funding probably will not, and that means unresolved damage to our Capital, which can ill afford such stress.
We did not build the District of Columbia the way Lenin built Red Square. There are countless places in this great country which are indeed designed for parades of this nature. DC just isn't one of them.
By holding this event smack dab in the middle of DC, we are literally bending over and asking for a security nightmare, because unlike a real military exercise, a parade means all those resources are sitting ducks, and they might actually get in the way of real resources which might be called up in a matter of minutes should the unimaginable happen.
PS: The nearest Army post that even has tanks is probably Fort Stewart. That's in Georgia, about 610 miles away.
A typical tank gets about a mile per gallon, and has a range of between 75 and 200 miles tops.
So that means we're railheading a bunch of tanks to the middle of DC.
Yeah, another headache of unimaginable proportions.