Marching Nowhere: Why Trump’s Upcoming Parade Isn't for the Troops
What about a parade for Vietnam Veterans, who never got a proper homecoming?
In a city better known for gridlock than armor columns, 28 M1 Abrams tanks are about to rumble down Constitution Avenue.
Why? Because President Donald Trump finally got his parade.
It’s been eight years since Trump first floated the idea after attending France’s Bastille Day celebration. Back then, critics laughed it off as a vanity project. But on June 14, 2025, coincidentally Trump’s 79th birthday and the US Army’s 250th, the laughter will be drowned out by the roar of jet engines, artillery salutes, and track-squealing armor.
The Parade That Almost Wasn’t
To understand the full spectacle rolling into Washington this June, you have to rewind to 2017. That’s when then-President Donald Trump, fresh off his first Bastille Day celebration in Paris, turned to French President Emmanuel Macron and essentially said, “I want one.”
The French tanks, the jets, the goose-stepping pageantry, it all struck a chord. The problem? America doesn’t really do military parades. Not like that.
Back home, the Pentagon scrambled to interpret the presidential wish into something actionable, while also trying not to look like a banana republic.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, caught in the bureaucratic crossfire, was reportedly less than thrilled. The military’s top brass rolled their eyes. Budget hawks did the math and gasped.
And America’s veterans, by and large, asked the obvious question: What exactly are we celebrating? Out of 100,000 military members polled by Military Times in 2018, 88% were opposed to Trump’s parade.
That first attempt fizzled under the weight of its own absurdity.
Projected costs hit $92 million before anyone even ordered the grandstands. Political blowback came from both sides of the aisle. Then-Defense Secretary Mattis, not known for subtlety, told reporters, “I guarantee you there will be no tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
And there weren’t any.
What was initially envisioned as a thunderous display of military might devolved into a subdued Fourth of July event in 2019 featuring flyovers and a few armored vehicles parked like lawn ornaments near the Lincoln Memorial. Trump called it a success. The military called it a logistical migraine.
Most Americans just wanted to get back to their hot dogs.
Fast-forward to 2025, and a few things have changed. Trump is back in the spotlight, the Army is hitting its 250th birthday, and there’s a renewed appetite, or at least political cover, for rolling out the steel.
The Army anniversary gives just enough legitimacy to wrap the whole thing in the flag and call it unity, even if it was born from a desire to outdo the French.
At the time, senior military officials reportedly balked at the idea, with one Pentagon planner calling it “North Korea light.”
Civilian leadership pointed to the cost, estimated at nearly $100 million for a full-scale parade through Washington’s core.
Local officials in D.C., already wary of the chaos that would ensue from moving 70-ton Abrams tanks over century-old city streets, questioned who would pay to repair the damage.
But the dream never died.
The Army’s 250th anniversary is a conveniently timed pretext. Trump is no longer just a former president but a political phoenix, back in the limelight and eager to resurrect his long-dormant military spectacle. And this time, the parade isn’t just about him, it’s about honoring the legacy of the Army, showcasing American might, and, let’s be honest, putting on a show that screams “mission accomplished” without needing the banner.
The Army, for its part, has leaned into the moment.
The June 14 parade will feature 28 M1 Abrams tanks, 28 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and more than 50 helicopters flying overhead. Add a sprinkling of WWII-era nostalgia in the form of Sherman tanks and P-51 Mustangs, and you’ve got what amounts to a rolling history lesson with a distinctly modern edge.
This is not just a nod to America’s military past, it’s a recruiting billboard for its present.
And while the timing conveniently lands on Trump’s 79th birthday (an accident, we’re told, with a wink), it’s hard to miss the symbolism. The event is equal parts patriotic commemoration and political theater. It is the culmination of nearly a decade of effort, frustration, and unchecked ambition.
The Bastille envy may have sparked the idea, but what we’ll see in Washington is something uniquely American: a battlefield pageant, wrapped in a flag, flanked by howitzers, and narrated like a campaign ad.
The Logistics Nightmare
Planning a military parade through the heart of Washington, D.C. is less like organizing a birthday party and more like staging the Normandy landings, if Omaha Beach had zoning restrictions, union permits, and 100-year-old sewer lines underneath.
For every tank rolling proudly down Constitution Avenue, there are dozens of unsung logistical headaches trailing behind, most of them invisible to the casual spectator but painfully obvious to the planners at the Pentagon, the D.C. Mayor’s office, and the Department of Transportation.
Let’s start with the basics. This parade features 28 M1 Abrams tanks, each tipping the scales at 68 tons. That’s 56,000 pounds per tread, a number that gives civil engineers ulcers.
Constitution Avenue is not exactly the Autobahn. Underneath its relatively smooth asphalt skin lies a delicate lattice of aging water mains, electrical conduits, and subway tunnels.
The city’s Department of Public Works has warned for years that heavy military vehicles could crack pavement, crush utility lines, or cause permanent structural damage to roads not built for mechanized warfare. In 2017, when Trump first floated the idea of a tank parade, city officials had to gently explain that D.C. roads would “not hold up well under the weight.”
And they were being polite.
To mitigate this issue this time, engineers have planned steel reinforcements along key sections of the route, while some tanks will be mounted on flatbed trailers… a compromise that satisfies safety concerns but undercuts the whole visual bravado of armor on parade. The Pentagon under Hegseth, not known for subtlety, would much prefer to let the Abrams roll on their own, engines roaring and treads clanking over the Capitol’s ceremonial turf.
Then there’s the transport issue. These tanks, howitzers, and helicopters aren’t housed in a conveniently located D.C. motor pool. They have to be hauled in from installations across the country: Fort Moore in Georgia, Fort Liberty in North Carolina, Fort Cavazos in Texas, even National Guard armories in the Midwest.
Each vehicle has to be loaded onto a heavy equipment transporter (HET), driven or railed to a staging area outside the city, and meticulously coordinated for timed entry onto the route.
That’s not even counting the infantry squad vehicles, mobile radars, or the vintage Sherman tanks being dusted off for the historical section.
And don’t forget the flyover. More than 50 helicopters, including Apaches, Black Hawks, and Chinooks, will fly in tight formation over the National Mall.
Coordinating that requires airspace deconfliction with D.C.’s notoriously strict FAA flight restrictions, as well as rehearsals that include contingency planning for everything from weather delays to mid-air refueling to engine trouble over a densely packed urban area. Remember, this is the same area where a single, solitary UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter collided with a civilian airliner bound for DCA not long ago.
Security, of course, turns the whole thing into DEFCON logistics. Every street needs to be cleared and swept, crowd control barriers must be placed along miles of parade route, and Secret Service personnel coordinate with local and federal law enforcement for real-time response capability.
Drone interdiction teams will be on standby. Counter-sniper teams will perch along rooftops. NASAMS air defense assets will be activated on numerous rooftops across the federal triangle. All of it must be invisible enough to let the parade feel like a celebration, but omnipresent enough to respond to any threat.
And let’s not ignore the troops themselves. Thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines must be staged, briefed, fed, housed, and given marching orders, literally.
Units pulled from rotation must interrupt training cycles or rest periods. In at least one reported case, a logistics unit at Fort Liberty was told to expedite maintenance checks and repaint aging equipment to “showroom quality” by the end of May.
Nothing says “readiness” like spray-painting rust off a 30-year-old Humvee because it’s about to be in a televised political spectacle.
The price tag? Estimated between $25 million and $45 million, and that’s just the visible line items. The actual cost, including readiness disruptions, wear-and-tear, overtime pay, and damage repairs to city infrastructure, could be much higher, none of which is included in the Army’s base operations budget.
Although, to their credit, the D.C. mayor’s office has demanded that street repair best be included in the overall parade budget and accounted for by federal sources.
So yes, the tanks are coming. The soldiers are marching. The helicopters are roaring overhead. But behind that façade of strength lies a sprawling, stress-inducing, and bureaucratically tangled mess of moving parts.
A nightmare, yes, but one that will make for one hell of a highlight reel for Trump’s third term.
There’s a Better Way
Here’s where things get dicey. America has always had a complicated relationship with military displays. The last full-throttle parade was in 1991, marking victory in the Gulf War.
It made sense. It honored returning troops and sent a clear message to the world. After America’s embarrassment in Vietnam, we were back, baby. We liberated Kuwait and laid the smack down on Saddam Hussein’s best troops; Bush Sr. showed incredible restraint by not destabilizing Saddam too much.
This parade, though, feels different.
It is as much about personal branding as it is national unity. Sure, it falls on the Army’s 250th birthday, but Trump’s fingerprints are all over it. It’s less about shared service and more about spectacle, an American remix of the Kremlin’s May Day theatrics.
And while Trump will likely claim this is about “supporting the troops,” it’s hard to ignore that many in uniform aren’t thrilled. They wanted better gear, better on-base housing, and fewer 12-hour shifts, not flyovers and pageantry.
For a country with the world’s largest defense budget, the United States has no shortage of ways to celebrate military service that don’t involve chewing up Constitution Avenue with 60-ton tanks or rerouting air traffic around a helicopter armada.
There are smarter, quieter, and arguably more powerful ways to honor service members; ways that don’t cost $45 million or require asphalt to be reinforced like a Cold War bunker.
Start with the obvious: if the goal is visibility and appreciation, why not redirect that funding toward high-impact initiatives that directly support the lives of veterans and active-duty personnel?
Imagine a “parade” where $45 million is invested into expanding mental health access for veterans or tackling the military housing crisis with urgency instead of half-measures.
That kind of headline writes itself: “US Cancels Parade, Builds Homes for Homeless Veterans Instead.” It’s not as flashy, but it’s real.
Or consider a nationwide “Thank You Tour” of mobile exhibits that bring the military to the people.
Interactive pop-up experiences could travel from city to city, giving civilians hands-on access to military equipment, meet-and-greets with veterans, and storytelling stations where real warfighters share their service experiences. Throw in some VR simulators, curated history exhibits, and livestreamed panel discussions, and you have something that builds genuine civil-military understanding, without flattening curbs in D.C.
Jesus, I’m not an event planner, but even I can come up with better uses for $45 million quid!
Then there’s the idea floated years ago, one I personally supported and still believe in: a parade that centers veterans, not weapon systems.
Specifically, the veterans of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, and Cold War peacekeeping missions that most Americans have already forgotten. These men and women served in silence and sacrifice while the rest of the country moved on.
Many of them never got a proper homecoming. A parade for them wouldn’t need flyovers or M1 tanks; it would need faces, flags, and families. It would need to be about them, not about spectacle. I’m particularly sensitive to the Vietnam Veteran cohort. As a Post 9/11 veteran, I enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, adoration from the general American public. But my Vietnam brothers and sisters were quite literally spit on when they returned. Check out the amazing book “Homecoming” by the late Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene.
Do me a favor: If you see a Vietnam Veteran on the street, look them in the eye, shake their hand, and say “welcome home.”
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the more militarized a parade becomes, the less it celebrates service and the more it becomes a flex. And flexing, especially in a democracy, walks a fine line.
Here’s the difference: Military parades in democratic countries tend to honor history and service. Military parades in authoritarian regimes tend to display power and submission. America must be careful which of those it is emulating.
This isn’t about being anti-parade or anti-patriotism. It’s about being pro-impact. And if the point is to honor the men and women who wear the uniform, the best way to do that might just be to skip the tanks, skip the tarmac, and ask what would actually make a difference in their lives.
Parades fade. Policies last. If this administration really wants to support the troops, it could start by investing in things that don’t require an after-action report from the Department of Transportation.
Everyone loves a parade. But parades tell stories, and this one feels like it’s telling two at once: the official narrative of strength and unity, and an unofficial subtext of ego and nostalgia for a time when “might makes right” sold better than it does today.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the applause on Constitution Avenue will drown out my cynicism. Maybe the flyovers will be awe-inspiring, and the kids on the Mall will remember this day for the rest of their lives.
But one thing is certain: When tanks roll through Washington, D.C., they leave more than tire marks on the pavement; they’ll leave questions about who we are, and who we want to be.
Wes out-
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Very well said Wes. You are so right. That amount of money could be better spent, on better care for the military and veterans 👍
It's a flex, a waste of money, and a feel good for Trump. Nothing more.