As August pushes closer to September, summer heads out and fall moves in. That means football, county fairs, and all the other community events better held in cooler weather.
Parades are another thing we look forward to in the fall and holiday season. There are the rodeo parades, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, Christmas parades featuring the local high school band--and so much more.
One parade we won't see this season is President Trump's proposed military parade in Washington, D.C. Don't get us wrong. We love our troops. (Some of us used to be troops.) They deserve all the praise for defending American freedom. And we're happy to show our appreciation for them both past and present in Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades every year.
We support standing during the National Anthem and decorating national cemeteries with wreaths. That and motherhood and apple pie. Well, in these latitudes, pecan pie.
But there's a fine line between adequately thanking our men and women in the military and spending tens of millions of dollars to bring tanks, jets and other military equipment into Washington, D.C., in a show of American might. Do you know what a tank can do to road pavement?
Word around the campfire is that the cost for this parade had ballooned to $92 million before the president was pressed into cancelling. President Trump says the nation will have a martial parade next year, and it'll be cheaper. Because you know how things get less expensive in Washington with every passing year . . . .
Maybe we should just cancel the whole idea as too Turkish or maybe Chinese. What is the old saying? Speak softly and carry a big stick? The United States has the biggest military--by far--and the whole world already knows it. Of the world's 21 aircraft carriers, the U.S. has 11 of them. Second place is Italy with two. We don't need to rattle our sword--everybody is already aware of the Americans.
We can have a national celebration to show we love our veterans without spending $92 million and disrupting the national capital and tearing up its streets. Not to mention taking our soldiers and airmen away from their day jobs. Just so some politicians can get some rub-off from the military in the run-up to election season.
You know who does martial parades? Russia and North Korea. And the aforementioned Turks and mainland Chinese. Should we really be drawing inspiration from them?
If our government really wants to show veterans love and support, it might start with fixing the VA. Now that would be showing our vets some love.
Editorial on 08/18/2018