Oh, brother.
I just caught up with an item reported by The Hill that gives me the heebie-jeebies. The Huffington Post reports that Donald Trump’s team wanted the inaugural parade to include a display of military hardware: tanks, big guns, missile launchers, lots of troops.
The Pentagon said “no” to that nutty idea. It seems that the brass realized something that Donald J. Trump’s didn’t understand, which is how such a display would look around the world.
The inaugural parade that occurs every four years is meant to salute the nature of our government, which stipulates that civilians control the machinery. As The Hill reported: “According to the report, the military shot down the request because of concerns about how it would look to have tanks and missile launchers in the parade, as well as the possible damage the tanks, which can weigh over 100,000 pounds, would do to the roads.”
There will be flyovers: The Navy, Air Force, Army and Marines will fly assorted combat aircraft over the proceedings. They’ll be seen and then they’ll be gone. I don’t have a particular problem with that.
But to roll the heavy equipment along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the presidential reviewing stand? That’s too much. It might play well in Moscow and Pyongyang. Not here!