[By Guancha Network columnist Gao Tian]

I originally thought that after the end of my study abroad, there would be nothing more to write about regarding the United States. During my time in the U.S., my first trip coincided with the pandemic, and later I spent most of my time at school and in the dormitory. My graduation trip went to Florida, and my internship took me to Washington D.C., but I never personally saw the annual "Rose Parade" in California.

Unexpectedly, as I was about to leave Washington, "King of the Knows" Trump staged such an impressive show — holding a military parade on Constitution Avenue in the capital, Washington, on June 14, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Army.

When Los Angeles had not yet fallen into chaos two weeks ago, 28 "Abrams" main battle tanks were loaded onto trains from their base in Texas; after a week and a half of rail transport, when the U.S. was already in a state of "widespread chaos," they finally slowly entered the freight station in Maryland. According to videos shot by American citizens, they have been loaded onto flatbed trucks and are being delivered to Washington D.C. in batches over several days.

In the evening around six to seven o'clock on the day of the parade (corresponding to the morning of the 15th Beijing time), these tanks, along with 28 "Bradley" infantry fighting vehicles, 28 "Stryker" wheeled armored personnel carriers, 4 "Paladin" self-propelled howitzers, and other heavy equipment, will be unloaded at the starting point of the parade route near the Lincoln Memorial. If everything goes according to plan, they should be using their own tracks to pass through Constitution Avenue.

Washington D.C. residents captured footage of the tanks entering the city.

Time is not only a butcher's knife but also a great boomerang. Looking back to the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China in 2019, every mainstream American media outlet and far-right media mentioned our military parade while mentioning the shadow of the Hong Kong unrest. Today, Trump is about to hold his birthday parade under the shadow of national turmoil.

When I was a student, I used to watch the California Rose Parade broadcast every year, honestly, I really liked it. It has an atmosphere close to a Latin American carnival but not so "wild," with a bit of a happy and disciplined aesthetic appeal. Although it cannot replace the position of our grand parades in the hearts of the masses during our country's ten-year celebrations, it has its own unique beauty exclusive to the American continent.

However, if we were to replace all the floats in that model with tanks and change all the well-organized cheerleader formations into soldiers, but still maintain that casual and loose pace, it would feel... a bit like an eccentric movie. Not even typical Americans, let alone someone like me who has only been slightly influenced by American culture, would feel afraid!

Nevertheless, things always have two sides. Like Empress Dowager Cixi in the past, Trump is just as obsessed with this big party. Especially given the current situation in the U.S., sticking to this event despite widespread knowledge shows that it dispels many myths about the U.S. circulating online domestically. Although, based on my observations, the internet environment in the U.S. is already chaotic, he has made some small contributions to clearing up the internet environment here.

"Democratic countries do not hold military parades?"

Before studying abroad, I often saw people online saying "democratic countries do not hold military parades." At the time, I wasn't very politically engaged and believed it. Only after coming to the U.S. did I realize that, regardless of whether it's right or wrong, this statement is difficult to translate accurately into English:

The four completely different concepts: "military parade" (military activities), "float parade" (traditional folk customs), "march" (protest demonstrations with collective routes), and "public shaming parade" (as punishment or public humiliation) are all represented by the same word "parade" in everyday English usage in the U.S.

If the protesters against ICE in Los Angeles were organized and related (and got approval), gathered and arranged into groups with starting points, endpoints, and routes for demonstrations, it would also count as a parade. Of course, under the pressure of Trump's forces, all parade applications in Los Angeles were rejected, so people couldn't "gather together like a bonfire" and thus "scattered like stars in the sky."

Not only does the word "parade" in English encompass too much, but the concept of "military parade" in Chinese does not correspond to a single English word either. In modern times, when we mention "military parade," we default to include two parts: "inspection of troops" and "marching review." In English, these correspond to "inspection of troops" (inspection of troops) and "military parade" (military parade). The former is clearly not exclusive in the U.S.; whether Trump passes by a rifle salute formation of guards walking on a red carpet or inspects the sleeping quarters of Los Angeles dispatch troops, it is called "inspection of troops"—"inspecting the troops."

Members of the California Army National Guard stationed in Los Angeles sleep without water or food on the warehouse floor. This will certainly be excellent adaptive training for their future retirement lives.

Indeed, due to the extremely poor security situation in the U.S., especially with the Kennedy incident as a precedent, "inspecting troops" has never happened; based on existing detailed reports, this won't happen either. What Trump wants to host is a "military parade": sitting facing south in a giant bulletproof glass structure temporarily erected on Constitution Avenue, letting infantry and tanks pass through his view like carnival floats, which is what is referred to as "military parade."

Illustration of the parade route and equipment display site. Image source: USA Today

As for the concept of "military parade" itself, in my understanding, it is indeed a semi-exclusive term close to "marching review" in American English, likely influenced by the specialized meanings of cognates in German and other languages. The reason it is "close to marching review" is because in fact, "military parade" is a very pure term; simply having a military theme for the parade does not count; having multiple consecutive active duty troop formations march in step does not count either; even having tanks participate does not count! (The U.S. just held one of these two weeks ago)

On May 26, the Washington D.C. Memorial Day celebration saw the U.S. military march through Constitution Avenue.

On May 26, the Washington D.C. Memorial Day celebration saw World War II tanks march through Constitution Avenue.

If we define "military parade" by these Chinese standards, then the U.S. holds a national-level military parade every year, with a frequency dozens of times higher than China's.

Then what exactly does "democratic countries do not hold military parades" refer to? After reading discussions online for several days, I understand now:

The American liberals who oppose Trump's military parade believe that it must be a continuous march with no civilian contingents, all floats replaced with tanks, all teams replaced with infantry, and it must not be the presidential inauguration ceremony (the scale of the presidential inauguration ceremony during the Cold War peak was large, and tanks and even ballistic missiles were deployed, almost identical to Soviet parades), which is the "military parade" they criticize—military parade.

Hmm?

According to this calculation, none of China's previous National Day military parades or socialist countries' parades qualify as the "military parade" criticized in this sense, because the parade is just a small part, followed by a larger-scale mass parade. Only the military parades of Nazi Germany, some of the KMT's parades in the past, and a few of the U.S.'s own parades meet the standard of "military parade" in American English.

In 1947, a grand procession of U.S. tank forces marched through Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.

From this perspective, the phrase "democratic countries do not hold military parades" in English makes perfect sense, but translating it into "democratic countries do not hold military parades" is entirely incorrect.

U.S. Military Face-saving Project

Some Trump supporters online claim that the military parade was planned during Biden's era to prove that it was not Trump using public funds to celebrate his own birthday.

This is complete nonsense.

The 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army's establishment indeed had celebratory activities planned two years ago, but they were just ordinary cost "American-style celebration packages," such as fireworks, concerts, National Football League (NFL) exhibition games, and even fitness competitions. Checking past U.S. reports on such commemorative days clarifies this.

It was only because Trump came to power, and his birthday happened to coincide with the Army's commemoration day, that the scale, budget, and projects of this year's commemorative celebration surged. Not only will there be a grand event held in the square of Washington D.C., including military performances, arms dealer exhibitions, paratroopers presenting flags to the president, the president hosting enlistment ceremonies, space station connections, athletes, internet celebrities, and famous people standing by for children's militaristic education, and a series of events far beyond the capabilities of a single branch of the Army, but it also introduced the aforementioned "military parade"—massive infantry reviews and tanks and other heavy equipment driving through autonomously.

Why say that the "military parade" was completely for satisfying Trump's personal desire to play more during his last term (at that time, tanks were only statically displayed)? Because it was not included in the original plans, naturally there was no advance construction of the parade village, nor any reinforcement of the road infrastructure in the capital. These of course come at a cost, and the cost is money—of the roughly estimated costs (about $45 million) that are currently not transparent, one-third is actually compensation for repairing roads in Washington D.C. and Maryland after the tanks pass through.

The local government's anger at the damaged roads directly prevented the implementation of the parade during Trump's first term, perhaps by the time Vance might take office in the future, it wouldn't matter anymore; but this year, some public funds still need to be spent to pacify. However, for the more than 6,700 U.S. military personnel who rushed from all over the country to participate in the parade, spending money isn't necessary: parade village? There are empty floors in the USDA and General Services Administration buildings, just pull up hammocks to sleep; breakfast and lunch during the parade and rehearsals can be eaten as individual rations, only dinner gets a hot meal, with a daily subsidy of $69.

During the January 2021 Capitol riot, the Washington D.C. National Guard slept on the floor of the Capitol building, which was of much better quality than those in Los Angeles this year.

Yes, Trump wanted to see the glorious history of the U.S. military, with formations representing each historical stage of the Revolutionary War and beyond, all custom-made by a celebration company with historically accurate old-style uniforms, issued to the active-duty officer representatives sent by each division.

The budget was all spent on the edge of cosplay, leaving no money for feeding the soldiers.

Meanwhile, since the essence of the parade is Trump's birthday, and Trump has not yet reached the level of African elder statesman Doe (former President of Liberia, should be familiar to those who have seen the "Oddball Small Countries" series by Xiao John Khan), his birthday this year can only coincide with the Army's founding day—therefore, this parade is the Army's solo performance. As mentioned earlier, the ceremonies on June 14 will not involve participation from the Navy or Marine Corps, not even the small ceremonial units seen during the Memorial Day parade. After all, one of the stereotypes of West Point is "sink navy" on the football field, and the Marines still have work to do in Los Angeles!

The Air Force is relatively more awkward. Although there will be no appearance of current personnel equipment, due to the fact that the Air Force was once part of the Army before 1947, today's Air Force technical weapons can be forcibly dragged out in the historical reenactment segment to celebrate the Army (Trump), making it look like all three services are involved.

According to current information, the P-51 Mustang fighter plane, which was once captured by the PLA and flew twice in the founding ceremony parade, and the B-25 Mitchell bomber, which crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945 and pioneered the "large aircraft crashing into skyscrapers" phenomenon in the U.S., will appear in the air above the White House. These World War II relics have long been discarded by the U.S. military and are now borrowed from private collectors, but they satisfy Trump's vanity of "military parades must have planes."

In 2022, a WWII bomber and a WWII fighter collided and crashed at the Dallas Airshow in Texas.

Based on current information, apart from these two antique aircraft, there will only be helicopters under the U.S. Army Aviation Command to see during the parade. Since the cancellation of the "Comanche" project, the U.S. has had no new helicopter models worth showing off, so the selling point can only be "historical glory"; Vietnam-era "Hueys," Gulf War-era "Cobras," and current "Apaches" and "Chinooks" will all appear. However, the former two antique helicopters are no longer in use by the Army, only the "Marines" have a small number of them left, and since the Marine Corps is not participating in this parade, they are probably exhibits borrowed from a museum, all scheduled to take off from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Although it is essentially Trump's birthday party, officially it is still a national ceremony occupying Constitution Avenue. With such a collection of antiques flying overhead, the flatterers in Trump's administration really don't fear accidents!

Talking about accidents... the "Black Hawk" helicopter that crashed into an American Airlines passenger plane over the Potomac River in January causing 67 deaths was from the Army. Due to the bad luck associated with this incident, not only will the "Black Hawks" not participate in the parade, but it is said that civilian air traffic over the entire Washington D.C. area will be directly shut down during the parade.

In addition to flight cancellations, the following image shows the nearly paralyzed traffic closure in the southwestern part of Washington D.C. in the days leading up to and after the parade.

A Divided Parade, a Divided America

If Trump's parade has any function beyond celebrating his birthday, it should be using the flag-raising effect to counteract the growing opposition voices across the U.S. The events in Los Angeles not only won't make him "sympathize with the times" to reduce the celebration but will actually intensify his need for this.

According to U.S. media reports, anti-climb fences and concrete barriers have already been set up around the parade route, and security checks are required to enter the entire National Mall area. On the 14th, multiple drones will patrol the airspace over the capital to ensure safety—whether there are any Chinese brands that haven't been replaced yet remains unknown.

In this tumultuous year 2025, this parade is destined to become a microcosm of American political polarization. Considering the current situation where anti-Trump forces in various parts of the U.S. are organizing and preparing to disrupt the parade, whether it can be held as smoothly as the Memorial Day parade two weeks ago remains uncertain at the time of writing.

When I passed by the Pentagon for the last time during my internship in Washington D.C., I took the following photo on a whim. Years later, it suddenly feels very suitable for some kind of metaphor—the overcast sky, corroded metal railings, a broken road with noticeable bumps, and the densely packed parking lot below the majestic Pentagon—actually, the Pentagon area is crowded with defense contractors' offices, and the Washington Monument in the seemingly distant background is almost completely blocked by the building, revealing only a tiny tip.

Let's not predict too much politics for now. Regardless of how the ceremony turns out, based on what I've seen and felt during my time in the U.S., the extreme polarization and division stem from many obvious problems, issues that cannot be solved by strong military power (regardless of whether it exists now), even if it is not for a birthday celebration, the parade is completely off target.

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Original link: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7515604302698725940/

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