Tanks, guns and face-painting
- The US Army’s Grand Military Parade on the National Mall was marred by an unsettling scene: a child operating an M119A3 Howitzer, while their parents took a photo in the background.
- The parade was ostensibly held to celebrate the US Army’s 250th birthday and recruit new soldiers, as the Army has struggled to meet its enlistment quotas for over a decade.
- Army spokespeople claimed that the parade was not intended for President Trump’s birthday, but rather had been planned months in advance as a separate event.
- The attendance at the parade included many people wearing blatant “MAGA” swag, which raised questions about the Army’s intentions and the tone of the event.
- The incident highlights concerns about the normalization of military equipment and the use of children in military contexts, sparking debate about the appropriateness of such events.
Of all the jarring things I’ve witnessed on the National Mall, nothing will beat the image of the first thing I saw after I cleared security at the Army festival: a child, sitting at the controls of an M119A3 Howitzer, being instructed by a soldier on how to aim it, as his red-hatted parents took a photo with the Washington Monument in the background.
The primary stated reason for the Grand Military Parade is to celebrate the US Army’s 250th birthday. The second stated reason is to use the event for recruiting purposes. Like other military branches, the Army has struggled to meet its enlistment quotas for over the past decade. And according to very defensive Army spokespeople trying to convince skeptics that the parade was not for Donald Trump’s birthday, there had always been a festival planned on the National Mall that day, and it had been in the works for over two years, and the parade, tacked on just two months ago, was purely incidental. Assuming that their statement was true, I wasn’t quite sure if they had anticipated so many people in blatant MAGA swag in attendance – or how eager they were to bring their children and hand them assault rifles.
There had been kid-frien …
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