The upcoming parade in Washington to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary has divided veterans<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NORFOLK, Va. — James McDonough served in the U.S. Army for 27 years, fighting in Vietnam and delivering humanitarian aid to Rwanda. For him, Saturday\u2019s military parade in Washington<\/u><\/a> for the Army\u2019s 250th anniversary \u2014 coinciding with President Donald Trump’s birthday<\/u><\/a> \u2014 is about the resilience of a vital institution and the nation it serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe soldiers marching that day represent all of that history,\u201d said McDonough, 78, of Crofton, Maryland. \u201cThey don\u2019t represent a single day. They don\u2019t represent a single person. It\u2019s the American Army still standing straight, walking tall, ready to defend our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christopher Purdy, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, called the parade a facade that paints over some of the Republican president\u2019s policies that have targeted military veterans and current service members, including cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/u><\/a> and a ban on transgender troops<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdy said the parade, long sought by Trump<\/u><\/a>, will needlessly display U.S. military might on the president\u2019s 79th birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing,\u201d said Purdy, 40, of Atlanta. \u201cIt\u2019s expensive. And whatever his reasons are for doing it, I think it\u2019s entirely unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until recently, the Army\u2019s long-planned birthday celebration did not include a big parade<\/u><\/a>. Added under the Trump administration, the event, featuring hundreds of military vehicles and aircraft<\/u><\/a> and thousands of soldiers, has divided veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some liken it to the military chest-pounding commonly seen in North Korea, a step toward authoritarianism or a perverse birthday party for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others see it as a once-in-a-lifetime accounting of the Army’s achievements and the military service of millions of soldiers over centuries. The parade is not about Trump, they say, but the public seeing the faces of soldiers when so few Americans serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Army expects up to 200,000 people could attend and says the parade will cost an estimated $25 million to $45 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, speaking at Fort Bragg<\/u><\/a> this week, said Saturday would be \u201ca big day” and noted “we want to show off a little bit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to celebrate our greatness and our achievements,” he said. “This week, we honor 250 years of valor and glory and triumph by the greatest fighting force ever to walk the face of the Earth: the United States Army.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr., an Army veteran who fought in Iraq, the parade is a missed opportunity to honor generations of veterans, many of whom paid a steep price and came home to little fanfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSadly, the timing and the optics and divisive politics have ruined it,\u201d said Martinez, 48, of Katy, Texas. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not picking one side or the other. Both sides are guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Plenzler, a retired Marine who fought in Iraq, said Trump wants to see troops saluting him on his birthday as tanks roll past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt’s just suspicious,” the 53-year-old from Middletown, Virginia, said of the timing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI absolutely love the Army from the bottom of my cold black Marine heart,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if the Army\u2019s birthday was a day later, we probably wouldn’t be doing it. I\u2019d rather see that $50 million take care of the men and women who went off to war and came back with missing arms, legs and eyeballs, and with damaged brains.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Kmiech, who served in the Army and Minnesota National Guard from 1989 to 1998, supports the parade because the Army is “part of American culture and our fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He notes the Army’s pioneering contributions to engineering and medicine, from dams to new surgical techniques. Like many veterans, he has a strong familial connection: His father served in the Army, and so did his maternal grandfather, who fought in World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn’t vote for President Trump, but the commander in chief is going to be part of that celebration,\u201d said Kmiech, 54, of Roberts, Wisconsin. \u201cThe distinction needs to be made that the parade is a celebration of our Army, not of a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Gulf War Army veteran Paul Sullivan, Trump and the parade are inextricably linked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis Trump tank travesty is all about stroking Trump\u2019s ego,\u201d said Sullivan, 62, who lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia. \u201cIf Trump truly cared about our service members, he would sit down with them quietly and say, \u2018What can we do with $50 million or $100 million to make your lives better?\u2019 He\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n McDonough, the veteran from Crofton, Maryland, disagrees that the parade is about Trump or too costly. He said the U.S. held a grand celebration in New York after World War II when the nation was deeply in debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe certainly need to bring our debt down, and we certainly need to take care of our veterans,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a false dichotomy. It\u2019s like saying if we bought two less aircraft carriers, we could do so much better to take care of our poor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And McDonough said soldiers’ oath is to the Constitution, not to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president \u201cunderstands the importance of doing this, not only for the Army, but for the nation,\u201d McDonough said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Purdy, the veteran from Atlanta, said the parade’s brazen flex of military strength is not an American tradition, particularly absent a recent victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI’m not saying we shouldn’t celebrate the country,” he said. \u201cBut for us to be projecting this type of hard power, in such a real in-your-face way, that\u2019s just not who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n