Military Parade

Tarlo Farm
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Military Parade

Postby Tarlo Farm » Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:17 pm

I certainly hope it won't interfere with my vacation plans in a few weeks

because I'm going to be laying in the damn street in front of a tank if the bone-spur-draft-dodger goes through with this deplorable, childish, expensive fantasy.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Chancellor » Wed Feb 07, 2018 2:07 pm

How is ANYONE who is actually conservative considering this man a conservative? UGH! I am so outraged with this.

WheresMyWhite
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Re: Military Parade

Postby WheresMyWhite » Wed Feb 07, 2018 3:57 pm

People still like him... me? I don't get it. There are politicians here running for various offices that claim they support POTUS as a plus in voting for them... :cry:

But then again former Sheriff Joe Arpaio (convicted of criminal contempt of court) wants to run for US Senate too :roll:

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Canyon » Wed Feb 07, 2018 4:18 pm

I remember reports that he wanted a military parade as part of his inauguration. Trump is scary, and all the obsequious Republicans are just as bad.

Tarlo Farm
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Re: Military Parade

Postby Tarlo Farm » Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:19 pm

He loves his tanks and generals and all the bright, shiny objects he played with as a child. Military School (for incorrigible children who caused nothing but trouble in public schools) was right up his ally - until it came time for Viet Nam.
Anytime I find myself talking to someone of a certain age who seems to support this buffoon, I remind them of his "bone spurs".

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Sunshine2Me » Wed Feb 07, 2018 10:26 pm

A military parade would be ripe for a terrorist attack.

Literiding
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Re: Military Parade

Postby Literiding » Thu Feb 08, 2018 1:56 am

Ignoring the current political situation for the moment, first, lots and lots of very good people are not particularly suited to the military and if you’re not going to get anything out of it why waste four years of one’s life being unhappy?

I have some qualification to speak to the subject, I’m a retired senior military officer although I’ve been retired now longer than I was on active duty and I’m old enough to wear a Viet Nam service ribbon in my ribbon bar. And yes, I have over 500 days of “combat time” which quite a bit when I was in. Now days, service members frequently have years and years of combat time. I was fortunate that I didn’t need to manufacture an excuse to complete my college education, my first year of college, I had a college deferment and then the draft lottery came along and my draft number was 311 — mandatory service only in case of thermonuclear war. <G>

Successful military personnel require a great deal of self discipline, ability to keep their mouth shut and the patience to wait for things to happen in it’s own time. And the ability to ignore a great deal of bureaucratic running around. As a result, military service can be as crushing as working in a “cube city” for a large corporation. People who are creative, impulsive, impatient or have even a slight problem accepting authority figures will have difficulty serving in the military. Doesn’t mean that they aren’t excellent productive members of society, just means that the military is the wrong place for them. There are many folks that I counseled that they should consider other options to make a living. Sometimes counseling was via formal discipline as authorized by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, other times over a cup of coffee on a late night watch. And I have no doubt that there are any number of people I put out of the service for either the “convenience of the government” or “other than honorable conditions” that made a whole lot more money over time than I did either in the service and/or in my post military career. They were the square peg in the round hole and it was my unfortunate duty to correct the situation. An example is the late Steve Jobs, brilliant, self confident, egotistical with the competence to make it stick. If he had served under me in the military, I would probably written very unflattering Fitness Reports (officer evaluation) on his potential for the military. But his yearly earnings was several times my lifetime earnings <G>!

I have often pondered the reason so many people of “liberal” political philosophy have honorable and often excellent military service yet so many flag waving people of “conservative” political philosophy do not. My explanation is that the military is the employment of “last resort.” How many young men have been offered the choice by a judge either join the service or go to jail (and yes I’ve had young people serve in my units that had to make that choice) though the military has always tried to get judges not do that. So young liberal students finishing their college degrees find that a degree in Fine Arts, History or Renaissance English isn’t very employable and join the military to get a couple years to sort things out and eating regularly is nice when you are young. The people with connections and/or degrees in Business Administration, Accounting, law etc. go to work and start their career and depending on their competence, may wind up as policy makers and law makers. If so inclined, they tend to do their “flag waving” after achieving financial success rather than before. It is very pleasant to have smart and capable people assigned to your military unit, but it is also nice to have senior governmental officials that watch out for your needs in the great Governmental budget battles.

In the past, military parades were a common stable of the U.S. experience. Good excuse for a holiday and it was a non-monetary way of rewarding those in uniform by holding them up to the population as “good examples.” That fell out of favor during the Viet Nam era when the military was vilified as being agents of an unpopular government.

Why does Trump want a big parade, here is as good an insight as we’ll probably get:

https://pilotonline.com/news/military/l ... 78a36.html

As a taxpayer, the questions that need to be answered, probably by the Pentagon Brass, are what are the goals that may be achieved, how much does it cost and does a parade provide a cost effective way to achieve them? Personally, I would probably vote against it if I was in a position that my opinion meant anything. But until I see a decision matrix, I’ll wait and see.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby piedmontfields » Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:28 am

Parading military might is not a trivial thing. History teaches us that.Parading military people might reveal that our military (US) is deeply multi-cultural and inclusive, compared to the US as a whole. Doubt that is the intent of Trump's desire.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Tarlo Farm » Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:54 pm

Literiding wrote:
Successful military personnel require a great deal of self discipline, ability to keep their mouth shut and the patience to wait for things to happen in it’s own time. And the ability to ignore a great deal of bureaucratic running around.

In the past, military parades were a common stable of the U.S. experience. Good excuse for a holiday and it was a non-monetary way of rewarding those in uniform by holding them up to the population as “good examples.” That fell out of favor during the Viet Nam era when the military was vilified as being agents of an unpopular government.


As a taxpayer, the questions that need to be answered, probably by the Pentagon Brass, are what are the goals that may be achieved, how much does it cost and does a parade provide a cost effective way to achieve them? Personally, I would probably vote against it if I was in a position that my opinion meant anything. But until I see a decision matrix, I’ll wait and see.


And who doesn't think the military is a great place for an individual who doesn't have these skills, to develop self-discipline, patience, and the ability to keep their mouths shut? As a high school teacher I saw loads of squirrels return as steady, disciplined individuals. Though with GWB in office, I stopped recommending the service, and certainly would not do so now.

I'm not opposed to a parade to celebrate a victory - if there really is such a thing - but we have no victories. And of course Donny watched the Bastille Parade and wanted one for himself. Actually he wanted one for his inauguration but the city of Washington told him no.
I'd rather spend the money of a parade and all it's bright shiny objects on benefits for our soldiers and sailors.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Literiding » Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:12 pm

Tarlo Farm wrote:And who doesn't think the military is a great place for an individual who doesn't have these skills, to develop self-discipline, patience, and the ability to keep their mouths shut? As a high school teacher I saw loads of squirrels return as steady, disciplined individuals. Though with GWB in office, I stopped recommending the service, and certainly would not do so now.


Yes, young people tend to grow up very quickly in the military and many of the traits we’re discussing are grouped together in the term “maturity.”

The primary reason the military exists is as an extremely expensive insurance policy to provide an alternative if diplomacy fails regarding important matters of State. Conversely, diplomacy is more effective when the diplomats have an effective military organization behind them. So all other results of military are collateral to effectiveness on the battlefield. Battlefield effectiveness is the result of teamwork as well as individual action. As an analogy, fighting a battle is much like an American football team with many people doing interconnected tasks to advance the ball. Also, in military is an extremely hazardous industrial occupation even in peace time and keeping young adults focused on the safety of the task is difficult.

While “Boot Camp” and officer accession programs do a pretty good job of determining those who have the desired traits or have sufficient fear of failure to develop them, the programs are not 100% effective and people make it to the “fleet” who are not suited to the life in the military. The purpose of the special category of law embodied by the Uniform Code of Military Justice gives the military the tools to eliminate those who are not part of the team.

A very senior Navy Captain once told me in one of those “some aces to live by” conversations that history teaches us that the junior individuals with brash self confidence are often the ones that step up to provide leadership when the designated leadership is absent. These folks are often difficult to lead because they question why something has to be done in a particular way and you can’t use, “Because I told you” very often. So when dealing with the fallout of their brashness, I always asked myself, “Is this someone I want with me if we’re getting shot at?” If the answer was “Yes,” I was much more patient than if the answer was “No.” And if someone who was a “No” used up his three strikes, I had little remorse about starting the proceedings to remove them from the military service. They needed to be somewhere else where they were less dangerous to themselves and those around them. The typical deployable unit has a median age of about 22 years old. When people ask why Navy officers are such “wet blankets,” I point out that the officers are in charge of one of the most capable machines of war consisting of hundred of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel surrounding hundreds of tons of munitions manned by a group of young people the same age as those depicted in the National Lampoon’s movie “Animal House.”

I'm not opposed to a parade to celebrate a victory - if there really is such a thing - but we have no victories. And of course Donny watched the Bastille Parade and wanted one for himself. Actually he wanted one for his inauguration but the city of Washington told him no.
I'd rather spend the money of a parade and all it's bright shiny objects on benefits for our soldiers and sailors.


Military parades are a way of showing off military capacity. Just look at the annual parade of North Korea though that image is somewhat spoiled by the fake guns and camping gear from the local mail order business. They also are a way of acknowledging one’s allies and reassuring them and there is an importance to who is invited and who isn’t. Long ago, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea threw a state dinner in the wardroom of the USS New Jersey. He snubbed the New Zealand ambassador by not inviting him . The ambassador felt the snub and much to everyone’s surprise, showed up in one of our boats with his wife and I, as the duty officer, spent a couple hours giving him and his wife a tour of the ship so the snub wouldn’t turn into an insult.

In terms of cost, the International Space Station does very little real science, what it does would be much cheaper via an unmanned satellites. But the diplomacy surrounding it precludes it’s termination. A parade would a fraction of one month’s expenses of the ISS. Anther example is the F-35 fighter. Billions and billions of dollars and the result is a rather mediocre fighter. But to cancel it would be a diplomatic disaster because of all the international contracts building bits and pieces of it. A few million on a parade is small potatoes in the world of international diplomacy and it has a very predictable outcome.
Last edited by Literiding on Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Tabby » Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:00 pm

Thank you very much Literiding for your insight into the military. Though most people have no trouble grasping that some people are either suited or not suited for any particular job or career, in the military it can be much more serious. There is a big difference between depending on someone to meet a deadline or target vs someone who's actions could cost you your life. I think we forget that - or we just don't know - just how much our safety, security and freedom depend on the existence and actions of our military. That is what Memorial Day/Veterans Day/Remembrance Day et. al. are about but I doubt most people truly get it. The military parades on these occasions are not only appropriate, they are essential.

On the flip side, I get the impression Trump wants a military parade just because of the attention it would bring him. Sure it would be grand but it wouldn't have any meaning - other than to celebrate his own ego. In that respect, it would be a complete insult to the military, those who serve and those who have sacrificed so that we can have the lives we have today. Personally, I find it offensive and more along the lines of Nazi parades which were meant to instill fear and obedience. I hope it doesn't happen but I have a feeling it will. My dad fought WWII for nothing, it appears.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby FlyingLily » Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:33 pm

I think he wants a military parade for three reasons:

1. He gets a childish joy from large machinery (remember the truck cab episode).
2. He can imagine that it is all about him: service members are marching for ME! Tanks are rolling out for ME!
3. He can then report on Twitter that it was the biggest crowd in recorded history, that Obama never had a parade, that we are all great again, etc.

If it has to happen, we can at least enjoy observing how much his wife hates him and finds him repulsive. If she even shows up.

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Re: Military Parade

Postby Hot4Spots » Fri Sep 28, 2018 11:10 pm

The only things Trumplethinskin lacks to become a total fascist are his military parade and a fancy uniform dripping with gold braid. Cadet Bone Spurs, indeed! I'm glad my uncle has long since passed. He served in the WWII in the Philippines. He'd be disgusted by this vicious, childish poseur.


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