7/2/19: The president spends the day putting the final touches on his “Salute to America” parade and fireworks display. Naturally, there will be a featured speaker for the Fourth of July show.
Himself.
There is probably no truth to the rumor that he hopes
to wear a military-style uniform, cut to make him look less rotund. His
epaulets will carry seven stars. That would be more than any general in U.S.
history. Trump will have all kinds of service ribbons to emblazon his chest.
There will be a white and black campaign ribbon, black center, with a white,
skeletal foot representing heroism in the face of crippling bone spurs. He’ll
have a ribbon, alternating green and white stripes, with “oak leaf clusters,”
for surviving brutal divorces, representing two divorces and the time Melania
found out he was having sex with a porn queen. Trump will have a “Marksman”
ribbon for hitting mostly correct buttons while tweeting. His neck will be
draped with a large gold medal on a ribbon of white stars on a light blue background.
This will be modeled after the Medal of Honor, but carry the words: “Greatest
President Ever.”
*
REAL HEROES have their doubts about the parade. Active duty military are reluctant to criticize the plan and risk irreversible damage to their careers. Retired officers have been blunt.
“I think
it’s absolutely obscene.”
“This looks like it’s becoming much more of a Republican Party event – a political event about the president – than a national celebration of the Fourth of July, and it’s unfortunate to have the military smack dab in the middle of that,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan under President George W. Bush.
“The president is using the
armed forces in a political ploy for his reelection campaign and I think it’s
absolutely obscene,” added retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, a veteran of
Vietnam, the Gulf War and peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.
“Military displays like this are
a favorite tactic of those who want to wrap themselves in the symbols of who we
are rather than really celebrating who we are,” said Jason Dempsey, a former
Army major who studies the military and society at the Center for a New
American Security, a nonpartisan think tank. “The military is playing an ever
more central role in American political life,” Dempsey added. “This fits into
this larger, troubling trend of identifying America itself as a military
state.
Barno called the Fourth of July
plans “very unusual.”
“I think one of the big risks is
that the military is being used in some ways as a political prop,” he said.
“It’s looking highly politicized by anybody’s yardstick.”
“I hope the speech doesn’t
become partisan, because troops shouldn’t be listening to the president talk
about the other party,” agreed retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré. “Presidents
usually leave their party business out when they talk in front of military
audiences, but people are becoming numb to it [to Trump’s braggadocio].”
No one knows what the total cost of Trump’s “Salute to America” show will be. Frankly, the White House doesn’t want us to know.
Still:
The military display on Thursday
could be expensive. For example, flying a B-2 stealth bomber will likely
require a journey from an Air Force base as far away as Missouri or Florida.
“That will be millions of
dollars in and of itself,” estimated Rick Berger, a Defense budget expert at
the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Berger did say a display like the one Trump has planned might
boost recruiting and that would be a positive, at least.
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