it's always half assed.

It was a big FU to Trump and he is too stupid to have realized what was happening.

Trump promised a celebration, I didn’t see any celebration yesterday. I know what celebration looks like I’ve been on Times Square New Year’s Eve. The commander-in-chief hiding behind bulletproof glass did not add to the celebratory mood. I think the soldiers are starting to get the word of how Trump treats veterans. Like shit.

I am an Air Force kid and it is 100% certain that military jets can fly in the rain.

And if there is cloud cover with a low ceiling, they can fly low.

Just like the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds do at Air Shows all the time.
Which I have personally seen.

The crowd wouldn't have seen anything above the cloud cover, and flying low was dangerous like flying in a fog-bank.

My favorite part was the crowd was so sparse and quiet you hear the squeaky wheels on the tanks and other vehicles.

I also loved the DJ smooth announcer whose copy came off as snark over the lame procession, "Imagine, no GPS or power steering! (squeak squeak squeakity-squeak like a bad shopping cart)"

(I do understand that noise isn't usually an issue with military vehicles, it was just funny how it all presented together.)

Yes the whole parade was unreal, so bad.

but that depends upon the situation. I watched AF planes fly during my AF career and during peacetime they didn't fly much when it rained or very low cloud cover. The reason was not to put the pilot or plane in danger. Had there been broken cloud cover in Washington DC no doubt they would have flown.

I believe it was still home to the Strategic Air Command thru that time period, so yes. They fly jets in the rain and clouds, like others I personally have seen it myself. Back in the day the hot shot pilots liked to buzz the beaches every chance they got, and some cloud cover on a hot summer day was a popular flight pattern because it gave them excuses if they got in trouble!

Right they would blame low ceiling and cloud cover for it.
Squadron commanders not impressed.

Of course even the older pilots might waggle their wings for the kids and wife
as they flew over the housing area.

Last edited Sun Jun 15, 2025, 08:30 PM - Edit history (1)

That's what fuckin' marching bands are for! You don't see figure skaters performing to free form jazz on ice.

When our drill sergeant started singing it towards the end of basic, we were at first shocked as we recognized it, but it worked great, and we marched with enthusiasm that morning.

Are you telling me that at some point they marched to Fortunate Son?? Do you happen to have a link?!

I hope someone else has that link

couldn't find it on youtube.
This is great too because the intent of the song is discussed by the man who wrote it.

Shared on BlueSky as part of my #ProtestSongOfTheDay series

#ProtestSongOfTheDay
In honor of (or so i hear) krasnov playing this during his nazi parade.
And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Hoo, they only answer, "More, more, more, more"
youtu.be/3RmQTYLD398?...

— Democratic Barbara (@barbtries.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T14:04:25.548Z

Link to tweet

I don't blame them - they had to walk like 2.5 miles to pass in front of like 500 people spread thin.

And yeah, marching isn't done to contemporary music with varying beats. Marching to music is dance, not military maneuvers.

… just love the soundtrack they “walked” to

n/t

But he was known as the "March King". And none of his "hits" would be considered "dance" music.

One reason for popularity for marching bands.

The reason for Shakespeare festivals. No royalties havre to be paid.

On while Millions of us Protested on No Kings Day.

Mahalo!

Link to tweet

Poor troops!

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Hoo, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no furtunate one, no

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no millionaire's son, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah-yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
Hoo, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask 'em, "How much should we give?"
Hoo, they only answer, "More, more, more, more"
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no military son, son, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, one
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate one, no, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no fortunate son, no, no, no
It ain't me, it ain't me...

A direct slap upside the head to the orange jackwad.

No one is allowed to humiliate Trump. There's always payback.

Though from what I understand about how low in the barrel the military is scraping up recruits, this is probably the best and brightest we had to offer.

No, I guarantee you if the Army wanted to put on a great parade,
dress uniforms, smartly stepping parade troops, flyover, etc they could do it for sure.

He's probably hate eating some big macs as we speak.

Melania looked like she was holding back a laugh.

How could anyone NOT notice the "Soldiers dressed in their fatigues, walking, strolling, not even in step with each other." My thought was that they were all pissed off and did that on purpose.

Not doing that, means they expected no serious consequences.

Or they put first day recruits in the parade who had not been taught how to march.

And we were just Brownies - the littlest of the Girl Scouts in our town's Memorial Day parade, many years ago

at the parade.

I went to my son's graduation from boot camp (marines) and my grandson's boot camp graduation (army). It looked nothing like this parade. Not to mention the different units that march in the Rose Parade every year.
These units looked like they didn't care and wished they could be somewhere else.

In the video I posted in another place, they brought a platoon of basic trainees to march in the parade.

The weird thing is, the basic trainees didn't look any worse than the professional soldiers in the formations before and after them.

and/or weekend to hail to the dictraitor and his traitor tots.

They wear what their commanding officer orders them to wear. All personnel have ACU's. Every parade I have been to, they usually have someone counting off, so they stay in step. This was a deliberate act or ignorance...think basic training level participants.

And it shows in this parade.

Some showed troops definitely not marching as precisely as I have seen in previous parades involving the military. I don’t know that they “played” the King, but I can’t imagine there being enthusiasm for such a spectacle. Maybe they were passing by empty viewing stands and chilled.

They don't get sloppy when doing a critical job in front of the Commander in Chief and
high level officials. They don't just chill in the middle of an important parade.

The whole thing was ridiculous.

There’s an image of a World War II Era Sherman tank – was there anything more recent?

I didn’t watch, nor will I – but the OP’s description indicates some lame, ridiculous charade.

I am an Air Force kid and even the Air Force could have put on a better parade.
And the AF is not known for parade training.

After basic training only had to march once at a Change of Command Ceremony. Needless to say we weren't very good at it. Even with some practice, we tried but things like that take a lot of practice.

But handling guns, marching, saluting, spit and polish are not their thing.

I was reprimanded by an Air Force officer some 5o years ago when I failed to salute him when he walked past me as I was heading to the mess hall at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He ordered me to halt and asked if the Navy taught proper military etiquette and respect for officers? I responded it did but I thought he was a bus driver. He put me on report. When my Chief asked me to explain my offense I told him my response. He said not to worry about it, they did look like bus drivers.

The Navy uniforms are wonderful.

Usually AF officers are laid back. I rarely saw anyone salute growing up.
Except the MPs at the gate saluted officers coming on to the base.

Every now and then you would get an AF officer with a stick up his ass,
But not very often.

I was in the Coast Guard in 1974 and our dress blues were actual blue bus driver suits... not like in the 60'a were they were more like the navy dress blues... I hated them...

When the sailors found out that our father was in the Air Force,
they kidded her about the Air force "bus driver" uniforms.
One day, the base personal had to wear their white uniforms
so my sister said they looked like the Good Humor ice cream
salesmen, and kept asking the for fudge cycles and drumsticks.
They didn't think that was funny.
Revenge (and ice cream) are dishes best served cold.

Army civilian for 8 years. Picked up a lot of Army "humor". What they say about the Air Force.

an Abrams tank. The Sherman was there to represent tanks from WWII. The parade was to show the history of the Army from its inception 250 years ago. There were soldiers dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms, Civil War uniforms (the Union, not the confederacy), WWI, Two, Korean, Vietnam, and more recent military excursions.

I didn't watch it, just the high lights on the news. They had vehicles (8 wheeled) that come in 3 or 4 different flavors, from troop carriers to comms. Looked it up, it's a Stryker. They were used as recently as Iraq.

I grew up in the military.
Career USAF father who flew combat in three wars.
Mother a military nurse during the Korean War.
Two brothers in US Army.
Uncles in Army and Navy.

I remember as a kid, reading some bad news in the Stars and Stripes,
the military newspaper. About how politicians were going to screw over
the USAF in some way. I went to my mother and voiced my worry.

She just laughed and said not to worry.

She said US military has been fighting jackass politicians for 200 years.
They just wait out the politicians, yank them around, and stall for time.
Soon the politician will be out of office and all will go back to normal.
And she was right, that is what happened.

And based on what I saw of the parade, that is exactly what I saw once again.
Even Air Force high school ROTC could put on a better parade.

Thomas Ricks’s “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” went into this with W&Dick. The brass sees POTUS’s as temps.

Route Step March is normally used when the terrain is uneven or difficult and it isn't something to be done in a parade. They may have been at At Ease March in which movement is permitted as long as silence, dress, cover, interval, and distance are maintained.
But even that doesn't make sense when troops march in a parade especially when they're passing in review. Route Step and At Ease March is used in the field to get troops from one point to another.

I've marched in a number of civilian parades (voluntarily) and base reviews in uniform with other members from our base and we didn't march anything like what the video shows. Days before a civilian parade or base review we'd practice how we march so when the time came to be seen we'd look sharp.

As for not marching to martial music, it's up to the person who is leading them to provide the cadence so everyone is in step.

As a retired AF Senior NCO, the thing I look at when I see troops marching are:
Do they maintain dress (alignment with those on their right and/or left)Cover (staying directly behind the person in front of them)
Interval (the distance from the back of the person in front of you to your chest.
Is anyone "bouncing" while they march which makes them stick out
Do they move as a single unit.

Those troops in the video displayed little of the above.

I can guarantee it wasn't the parade trumpy was expecting!

Former Air Force here, and the only marching we did after basic was changing of the guard.. commander. We didn't march but the one time we did it was in dress blues, in time, and smartly.

Just seeng soldiers in fatigues at this type of parade blew my mind. Total diss on trump.

I was in the medial group and one thing about marching is the medics aren't too good at marching. I was at Myrtle Beach AFB in the late 70s and the base held a Pass in Review (parade). Each group would march past the reviewing stand where the wing, base, and group commanders and their wives would be. Our first sergeant has us practicing the last hour of the duty day for four days to get ready for the Pass in Review. All the group units lined up in front of the enlisted dorms and marched to the flight line where the review was being held. Once there, we waited until the order to Pass in Review was given and then each of the groups would march with about 30 feet between them. When our group's turn came we marched down the flightline with man out of step, airmen bouncing up-and-down while marching, and just looking bad. As we came upon the reviewing stands, there was a line on the flightline which indicated when we would be judged. Observers told us as we came to the line everything fell into place with everyone in-step, no one bouncing, and we move as one unit. As soon as we past the final review line one of the med techs lost her shoe and stopped to pick it up causing problems for those behind her. After that our marching fell apart but we weren't under review.

Funniest thing at the time was we weren't aware one group would be chosen as the "best" and we won. When we heard that the next work day everyone had a good laugh about it.

I noticed that listless marching and thought WTF - in USAF we literally were more snappy than that when we marched from our dorm room to tech training, right after Basic

Both countries were well on their way there by mud1990, so there was’t much danger of that balloon going up during 1990-1993. Clinton’s biggest concern by then was the Balkan conflict, which lasted for most of his presidency.

given by a bunch of lazy superficial incompetents, leading to the shambolic appearance.

The notion that this was an act of resistance sounds like hopium/copium. Why assume resistance when we already know The Dotard and Kegsbreath are sloppy buffoons? Occam's Razor -- this is probably the parade which was ordered.

Too tiring. They were 'straggling'. A real marching command. They surely formed up and marched while 'passing in review'. What I think the real tell was broadcasting "Fortunate Son" along the route.

With huge numbers of soldiers.

Straggling for a $50M parade?
Sure.

USAF ROTC could have done better.

Boy, that certainly IS a tell, if ever there was one!

And so many shots of trump looking dejected and even defeated, with a really pathetic facial expression. Sheesh! Do you suppose he actually “got” the “joke”? That wouldn’t just be a punchline. That would be a punch-in-the-gut line.

I guess maybe all the contrived prancing and posing and “Look at ME! I’m KING!” stuff just isn’t working for him anymore.

I made similar comments in another posting........

It definitely appeared to be a subtle rebellion, a passive aggressive show by the Military and esp their soldiers........

Did you see the video of Heg whatever and Trump's faces while it was going on??????? Wow were they pissed off............

He is laughing hysterically while everyone else looks like they are at a funeral.
Then later he looks checked out.

I saw a picture of Rubio who looked very bored with a deliberate sour look on his face.

I wonder why they were so pissed off?

The Army planners themselves chose Fortunate Son.

The US Military is still great despite the fact that a totally unqualified alcoholic is now the Secretary of Defense.

Under-qualified and incompetent is the norm for this shit show.

To do something this bad within certain parameters took some skill and experience.

And so, I was wrong - he is 25. Well then - he is seasoned professional.

Calling all incompetent twenty something incels, weirdos, misfits, and sociopaths - you too can get a job at the administration take over.

They practice in the rain. They can fly.

They train in all weather to be ready to deploy at any time.
I'm shocked he didn't demand the Stealth fly overhead, just like at a NFL game.

Trump believed it.

When they don't want to fly it's bad.

But was the weather that bad yesterday in DC?
Not one airplane could do a one minute flyover?

This could not be a coincidence. Army marching at route step for the CINC could not be a coincidence. I'm hoping as an Army vet the brass was telling Commander Bonespurs "fuck you."

it was like the author of the narrative designed it to be as un-militaristic as possible. (Kudos to the author !)

Link to tweet

Trump will blame him for the parade flop and the Heinz bottles will be flying.

He looked toasted for some of the parade. High on booze and cocaine.
Laughing like a maniac when every one else looked bored and depressed.

I didn't see him or Ivanka.

a yellow bellied draft dodging coward took their day off away from them and they showed him the big FU.

but it sounds funny!

Seeing as how tRump made it clear this Really Big Show was actually to honor him, you’d think they’d have been spit shined and crisp in their uniforms. Instead we get a strolling bunch looking quite casual and lackadaisical. I’m betting that tRump was livid. That is when he had his eyes open enough to see. The rest of the rat pack looked bored and ready to head for a bar for a stiff drink. Joanie Ernst looked like she might cry. Oh, she knew. She knew. 😞

The crowd was so quiet that when the tanks passed by, you only heard wheels squeaking and birds chirping. No cheering. No clapping. The onlookers must have been underwhelmed, too.

Short and sweet: tRump’s parade was a bust.

Our uniforms were sharp, spit and polished shoes, etc.
And we could walk in unison.

Nuns took care of things the old fashioned way.

it was like that every day even without a mass.