Army celebrates its 250th year, Trump celebrates his 79th : NPR

The U.S. Army will celebrate its 250th anniversary on Saturday with a mblockive military parade overtaking the streets and skies of Washington, D.C., and thousands of service members participating in the big-budget spectacle.

Also celebrating on Saturday is President Trump, whose 79th birthday corresponds with the Army anniversary, and who has long dreamed of holding such a display of America’s military might. A parade of this magnitude is unusual during times of peace and has stirred up controversy for what some view as a politicization of the nation’s armed forces.

Plans for commemorating the milestone anniversary have been in place for at least a year – long before Trump had secured a second term. But the parade feature was added in recent months, ballooning the budget by tens of millions for the already large-scale event and leaving planners for both the city and military scrambling to prepare.

The parade is part of a larger slate of events, all taking place around the National Mall. Beginning at 11 a.m. ET, the Army will host a public festival with military demonstrations and live music, before the parade begins at 6:30 p.m.

The parade march is expected to end around 8 p.m. ET, and the evening will be capped off with a fireworks display in front of the White House.

Presidential wishlist

Trump has been asking for such a parade since 2017, after he saw a military demonstration in France for Bastille Day. At the time, officials were able to keep the notion at bay, citing the questionable optics of a peacetime demonstration.

But in his second term, the Army’s birthday presented an opportunity for Trump to have the parade he’d long wanted.

Speaking last week at Fort Bragg, Trump said the parade was going to mark a “big day in Washington, D.C.”

“You know a lot of people said we don’t want to do that. I said, ‘yeah we do, we want to show off a little bit,'” he said.

Since the parade was announced, there has been sharp criticism, particularly from Democratic lawmakers who call the showcase a vanity project and a misuse of funds.

“To use the military in this manner when Donald Trump is slashing veterans’ benefits to aggrandize himself, to communicate to the country his control over the military, is just another shameful act of this administration,” said Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

Other critics have said it’s a display of military force typically blockociated with autocratic governments in places like Russia or North Korea.

The parade will feature dozens of armored tanks and artillery vehicles such as HIMARS, army aircraft, including Black Hawk helicopters and Apaches and more than 6,000 uniformed troops. It’s meant to walk viewers through the history of American military conflict, with some historical uniforms and vehicles being used.

Additionally, 34 horses, two mules and one dog – a Blue Heeler named Doc Holliday – will join the march.

Already, the weekend festivities have racked up an expected price tag of between $25 million and $45 million, according to Army spokesperson Heather J. Hagan. That includes planned road repairs due to possible damage from tanks rolling on city streets.

Trump is expected to participate in the parade as a spectator, but he is scheduled to receive a folded American flag, according to Army spokesman Steve Warren. Such a presentations are usually reserved for the families of fallen soldiers.

The army says it expects around 200,000 attendees.

Military equipment has been arriving in D.C. for days

Heavy military equipment has been rolling into the city for days, coming in by freight or carried through city streets on large, flat-bed trucks.

Peirce Economakis was bartending on Tuesday evening in Shaw — a residential neighborhood in the city – when he said the main road nearby was suddenly closed off by police around 8 p.m. as truck after truck loaded with military machinery such as tanks and armored cars drove through. He says the whole scene probably lasted about 30 minutes.

“It’s surreal. It’s a little depressing,” he said. “I think a lot of people forget that people actually live here and it’s not, you know, some sort of playground.”

Significant street closures have been in effect around the city since Thursday, and Reagan National Airport has said it will close for several hours, potentially disrupting flights on Saturday to accommodate the military flyover safely.

The city has also been bracing for potential damage to its streets by installing steel plates along the parade route. D.C. Mayor Mariel Bowser has expressed concern that heavy machinery and tanks could rip up roads and require millions of dollars to repair.

First major military parade in the U.S. in decades

Such a display of military equipment and personnel is highly unusual in the U.S.

The country has not had a major military parade like the one planned for this weekend during times of peace in a very long time, although presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower did have some troops marching with military equipment for their inaugurations.

The last major military parade was in 1991, also in D.C., to celebrate the end of the Gulf War and commemorate fallen soldiers from that conflict. But even that move was seen as controversial, says Joshua Zeitz, a historian and contributing editor for Politico magazine.

“Our country was born of a very particular opposition to state power, state authority, to standing armies which could enforce that type of authority and power,” he told NPR’s All Things Considered, saying that it’s important to view this parade in context with other moves Trump has made to expand the authority and the power of the presidency.

“He’s really reinventing the presidency as something that doesn’t resemble what it has traditionally in American history, and the military parade is part of that,” Zeitz says.

But Matthew Frakes, a historian of American military history and blockistant professor at the Ohio State University, points out America does have a history of smaller military parades – like local Independence Day or Veterans Day celebrations, for example. He said the key with this parade will be to see how much of it focuses on history versus a show of America’s military prowess.

“In democracies, military parades are meant to commemorate, whereas in authoritarian regimes they’re meant to intimidate and so you can think of, you know, the Soviet Union or more recently in China or North Korea,” Frakes says.

Planned protests

Ahead of the weekend events, organizations across the country planned to protest against the parade, which has been criticized as a vanity project for the White House.

The group No Kings, which has organized past protests against Trump, will host events in more than 1,800 cities across the country.

“On June 14 – Flag Day – President Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday,” No Kings said in a statement on their website. “A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.”

The group said that in order to pull attention away from the display of military grandeur, No Kings would specifically not demonstrate in Washington on Saturday, and instead host their largest demonstration in Philadelphia – the city known as the birthplace of America.

“Instead of allowing this birthday parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else the story of America that day: people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption,” the group said.

As of Friday afternoon, the National Parks Service had approved a protest permit for just one demonstration related to the parade, but other unsanctioned protests could pop up. 

Trump is already facing sharp blowback for his decision to deploy the military to Los Angeles amid protests against ICE immigration raids. He has vowed to take action against demonstrators at Saturday’s events.

“For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” he told reporters from the Oval Office. “And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.”