‘Dear Leader’: Trump Has Ordered the Pentagon to Hold a Huge Military Parade for Him – It Will Cost Millions

Military Parades Are Often Held by Dictators

President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to hold a huge military parade for him, according to The Washington Post. The parade will have no military benefit, and in fact will cost millions of dollars. While not unprecedented, no U.S. president has had one since George H.W. Bush, but it had a purpose: celebrating the end of the Persian Gulf war, not celebrating the commander-in-chief.

“The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” a military official tells The Washington Post. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”

The Post notes the cost of Trump’s parade “could run in the millions, and military officials said it was unclear how they would pay for it.” President Bush’s military parade 25 years ago cost $12 million. 

The White House says the parade is still in the “brainstorming” phase, but insists Trump “wants to do something that highlights the service and sacrifice of the military and have a unifying moment for the country.” 

The New York Times last year reported Trump had wanted to have a military parade at his inauguration but plans didn’t come together. He was again inspired last summer when he visited President Emmanuel Macron of France.

“I came back and one of my early calls were, I think we are going to have to start looking at that ourselves,” the president told Mr. Macron. “We are actually thinking about Fourth of July, Pennsylvania Avenue, having a really great parade to show our military strength.”

Later, Trump “called the Bastille Day event ‘one of the most beautiful parades I have ever seen’ and said that ‘we should do one day down Pennsylvania Ave.'”

Given that the U.S. military is actively engaged on several fronts around the world, and Trump claims they are both understaffed and underfunded, it’s hard to understand how or why he would choose to order himself a parade.

Image: DoD photo by EJ Hersom via Flickr and a CC license
This article has been corrected to indicate George H.W. Bush was president during the parade following the Persian Gulf war